TWO-WAY STREET

 by Phillip “Pete” Starr

One of my friends had a martial arts instructor who told her that the teacher has five responsibilities/relationships to the student and she said she'd forgotten what he'd said about it. Actually, I think it's a two-way street.

Being a teacher (of any kind) is a great and terrible responsibility. One of my students once presented me with a T-shirt that read, “To teach is to touch a life forever.” And that's very true, more than most of us realize. Martial arts instructors, especially, have a huge impact on their student's lives. It isn't just teaching techniques or footwork, or forms; it impacts the students physically, mentally, and spiritually. This is as true for adults as it is for children.

I've often said that a teacher must be ready, willing, and able to learn from his students! If he cannot or will not, he's in the wrong business.

The teacher must be thoroughly versed in the art that he teaches and train himself daily, striving for perfection and a better understanding of what he teaches. Nothing is worse than a so-called teacher who rarely practices himself and who has stopped growing in his art. It's a never-ending process. In this regard, he sets an example for the student...not just in his chosen art, but in daily life as well.

It goes without saying that the teacher must attend classes and not just show up when it's convenient, leaving his teaching duties to senior students.

Of course, the teacher must be honest with his students. If he doesn't know the answer to a particular question, he should be honest enough to admit it. So many teachers act as if they know virtually everything about their art but this is never true. I've known teachers who are angered when asked a question that they're unable to answer. This is certainly a poor example to set for the student(s) involved.

And above all, he must care...REALLY care. If his students are just so many faces and/or a means of padding his wallet, he's a charlatan. I don't think that caring is necessarily something that can be learned; one either is a caring person or not. The teacher should care about each student not just in so far as their martial development is concerned, but about their lives and how they're coping.

And the teacher must encourage and allow his students to grow, even if it means that they will exceed him in some way. That should be the goal of teaching, shouldn't it? If our students never exceed us and their students never exceed them and so on...the arts will go into a sharp decline!

As for students, they should show up for class...that's the “first discipline” as one teacher said. After all, the teacher is taking a part of his life to be there for the student...so the student should attend class, if at all possible. If he/she cannot do so for some reason, the teacher should be notified as soon as possible.

The student has an obligation to do as his teacher says and to practice diligently at home, striving to master what he has been taught. To fail in this is to waste the teacher's valuable time and to simply “spin your tires” and go nowhere. It's disrespectful.

In days past, a student who wished to learn from another teacher while still training with his primary instructor, had to get permission from the latter before doing so. Failure in this could result in rather severe punishments because it is terribly disrespectful. One famous kung-fu teacher I knew showed me his wrist after we had practiced taijiquan together and he noticed that I'd looked at it wonderingly. On the radial side (that's the thumb side for you rednecks), it looked like someone had used a spoon to scoop out tissue and bone. I asked what had happened. He told me that some time after he'd arrived in America (and became accustomed to Western ways), he'd sought instruction in quin-na (seizing and joint twisting) from another well-known teacher of the art.

Some time later when he was visiting his original teacher (who was up in years by that time) in Hong Kong, he mentioned this fact and his teacher asked him to perform one of the quin-na techniques on him so that he could experience it. When he did, his teacher immediately struck him on his wrist (causing the malformation), causing terrific pain. When his student asked why he had done it, he replied that he (the student) had never asked permission to train with another teacher! He also told him that the malformation was permanent; it would be a constant reminder of why he should adhere to the “old ways” of the student-teacher relationship...

It was always proper for the senior student(s) to look after the teacher when the teacher reached his senior years. Students would ensure that he would have a place in which to live and otherwise care for him. In those days, a teacher would usually have only a handful of students, and maybe just one! This kind of thing has been largely forgotten in the West. A pity.