MASTERS FROM THE EAST?

 By Phillip Starr

I'm fairly sure that many of you, particularly those who've spend some considerable time in the martial arts, have met Eastern instructors whose behavior is certainly less than sterling (in fact, it's sometimes downright vile) and/or whose instruction is very poor. How, you may ask, can this happen? Well, we must first establish a couple of important points: First, there are plenty of jerks in positions of teaching authority in the martial arts who come from every race and ethnicity on earth. Martial arts seem to attract many people who have various emotional or psychological problems and far too many of them hang around long enough to acquire positions as teachers. The various psychoses and neuroses of these instructors from both East and West are wide and varied, but this isn't our subject.

Uncivil, even vile, behavior is not the exclusive domain of teachers from the East, so why accentuate their failings? Am I holding them to a different standard than those who hail from the West? No, I'm not. Not at all. Many people, however, consciously or unconsciously, do. And that's why I'm writing this article. I deplore all bad behavior, both in and out of the training hall, of all martial arts teachers and I have written considerably on the subject. I am focusing this article on Eastern teachers primarily because Westerners often have higher expectations of Eastern teachers because, after all, the martial disciplines that we aspire to learn came from their cultures and it is only natural to believe that they would have a deeper understanding of the arts and their goals, and exhibit a high standard of behavior. This isn't so say that such a belief is valid. Or even reasonable. But it is natural and common. And, in many cases, the Eastern teachers have buttressed that notion.

Teachers who sit as the leaders of virtually every major martial arts organization are presented as “masters” and unquestionable authority figures. Members of the groups who are from the West have often been told that they cannot really, truly, understand the profundity of their arts. Even so, the majority of Eastern teachers who head up these groups were shown the way to the pedestal by credulous, unquestioning students. In most instances, the teachers weren't at all hesitant to hop up onto those platforms.

How did it happen? Bear in mind that gong-fu, taekwondo, karate, modern judo and aikido, and kendo were not some ancient part of traditional Eastern life. They evolved rapidly in different cultures – in Japan after they adopted a constitutional monarchy and emerged into a modern nation, in China after the Cultural Revolution and it was found that there was a market in the West for martial arts, and in Korea during and after the Vietnam conflict. Sure, they existed prior to these times, but they weren't major parts of those cultures. In all cases, the average citizen enjoyed a higher standard of living and many were able, for the first time in their lives, able to pursue hobbies or avocations.

For the Japanese, the harsh realities of feudal life became a bit fuzzy and attained something of a glow of the nostalgic in so far as martial heroes are concerned. The Japanese were the first to bask in this glow...in the 1930's. By then, the nation had become very militaristic and the young men who engaged in martial arts training did so with a “gung-ho” spirit and very military attitude and style. Training was absolutely brutal and it all deeply affected those students (who would become martial arts leaders in the future) very deeply.

In China, adherence to Party policy was absolute. Fighting of any kind was strictly forbidden. It was a serious crime and any and all participants would quickly find themselves behind bars for engaging in anything of that sort. Sparring and other forms of practice fighting weren't illegal, per se...but they were watched closely by the police and nobody wanted to attract THEIR attention. So, the main focus was on practicing forms.

As recently as the 1990's, martial arts teachers in Korea weren't held in the highest esteem and I was told (by several Koreans) that most fathers would prefer that their daughter married a factory worker than a martial arts teacher. But it was a very different scene in the West, where Eastern martial arts instructors could make a good living and enjoy much high social status.

So, in the 60's when the first waves of martial arts teachers came West, they were regarded as “masters.” Some of them weren't even martial arts teachers but they still enjoyed the notoriety; I know of one Chinese gentleman (who was a high school teacher) who laid claim to being a “master” of “calligraphic gong-fu.” He'd have students waving their hands in the air, as if writing the characters for phrases such as “I love you.” And he had literally dozens of students!

The truly skilled teachers often had a rough go of it; homesick, in a foreign country and unable (or barely able) to speak the language, eating foreign food, often sleeping on the floor of the training hall, they were trying to teach part of their cultures to foreigners who had no understanding of them. It was terribly frustrating. So when it was suggested that they act as leaders of an organization, they naturally jumped at it.

Bear in mind that there are Western as well as Eastern leaders who have done and are still doing a remarkable job within their organizations. Just be careful about putting them on pedestals. We all know how that ends...