Why does a teacher do this? How do you pay your teacher back for all they give you? I'm not angling for donations or justifying class fees; I don't and will not teach Bando commercially. Trust me... our club isn't anywhere near in danger of becoming a full time job for any of our instructors!
It's actually simple. Practice. Train. If you have the opportunity down the road to pass along the art -- do so faithfully. Repay our time with your time; repay the thought and effort we put into your training by practicing on your own, by taking the lessons to heart and making them your own.
So, how much should you practice on your own? That depends. How good do you want to be? Master Manley has said:
If we are to reach
heights of extreme Excellence
Being completely without flaw
Then we must strive
to make it at least that
before we make it more.
Master Manley's response, if you ask him if he's any good at martial arts is that "They say I am... I don't know. I'm still training."
So... Ask yourself: Have I repaid my teachers? Am I still training?
Nice post and pertinent on so many levels. If someone goes out of their way to help you then you owe them a debt. Not in a financial sense but in a spiritual sense where you need to work and repay it. In the Martial Sciences quite often you repay it by doing the little things like training hard, helping out and hopefully in the future teaching someone else and spreading this valuable skill set.
ReplyDeleteBrian R. VanCise
A thoughtful article!
ReplyDeleteWe only limit ourselves and we can only pat through ourselves.