Expanding Skill Set

[djsHowatt]

General Question: Does your Teacher get upset when you take another MA class while you are enrolled in his class?

Here is my issue, I have been enrolled in a 5 animal Kung Fu class for a few years and have asked the instructor about learning other skills like Chi Sau or other boxing skills that are outside his curriculum to expand my skill set. He seems to be ok with me asking but we never work on anything else but his program. I ended up joining an informal class outside the dojo that teaches some of the other skills I wanted to learn on my free nights. When my instructor found out that I was learning other stuff he became very upset and wanted me to stop what I was doing because he did not feel the other skills I was learning were of any value. While I am loyal to my instructor to a point, I am getting a bit annoyed that he is trying to tell me what I can and cannot learn.

Any advice would be most helpful.

thanks

djsHowatt

 

[K-man]

I encourage my guys to try everything they can. Training in other disciplines helps you understand your own. :asian:

 

[Noah_Legel]

My instructor encourages cross-training with people from other styles once you have developed a base in our style--generally within about 2 years of dedicated practice. If you want to cross-train in something totally different (wrestling, for example) then that is encouraged without the caveat of developing a base first, since you most likely will not learn things that conflict with what we do.

 

[Touch Of Death]

General Question: Does your Teacher get upset when you take another MA class while you are enrolled in his class?

Here is my issue, I have been enrolled in a 5 animal Kung Fu class for a few years and have asked the instructor about learning other skills like Chi Sau or other boxing skills that are outside his curriculum to expand my skill set. He seems to be ok with me asking but we never work on anything else but his program. I ended up joining an informal class outside the dojo that teaches some of the other skills I wanted to learn on my free nights. When my instructor found out that I was learning other stuff he became very upset and wanted me to stop what I was doing because he did not feel the other skills I was learning were of any value. While I am loyal to my instructor to a point, I am getting a bit annoyed that he is trying to tell me what I can and cannot learn.

Any advice would be most helpful.

thanks

djsHowatt

I agree with your teacher. He isn't saying they aren't useful on the street, he is just teaching something else, and what you are doing runs counter to internalizing his art. Do what you want, but it makes perfect sense to me.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

I encourage all IRT practitioner's to cross train and I also regularly bring in instructor's from other systems to give them exposure.

 

[Flying Crane]

well, I have a very old-school Chinese sifu and he says that outside of class we can do whatever we want, including training in other methods. However, if that outside training interferes with, or stunts the growth, or prevents us from developing our skills in what he is teaching us, then it becomes counter-productive and ya really ought to decide what it is that you want to do, and then focus your time and energy there.

What I've found in the Chinese arts is that when taught and trained correctly, there is a specific methodology in how a technique is developed. On the surface, one punch may look the same as another, but the specific mechanics of delivery can be quite different, and are not always obvious to the untrained or uneducated eye. So, if your sifu's system has a punching methodology and you go off to train boxing on the side, well the methodology of boxing might be dissimilar enough to your sifu's method, that it actually causes your kung fu punching to deteriorate. So the from his point of view, why is he wasting his time and effort in trying to teach you? If you are interested in boxing, and if boxing isn't methodically compatible with what he is teaching you, then you just create confusion in your own training. When you punch in kung fu, your punches are "tainted" by boxing and aren't quite right. And when you punch in boxing, your punches are "tainted" by your kung fu, and aren't quite right.

I think experiencing several different methods is an important part of the journey, in discovering what is best for you. But eventually it works best if you pick one method and stick with it.

 

[jks9199]

There're two points of view on this, as you may have noticed in other replies.

The first is that expanding your knowledge and experience and exploring other approaches is good and beneficial. Some instructors will caveat this, that it's good at a certain point in your training, but until you're at that point, you need to focus on just understanding and developing your base art.

The second is that there are reasons and methodologies involved in training in your art, and that by dividing your focus into another one, you spend your time and energy on something that's not likely to help you in your main art. I tend to be in this camp -- though I don't have a problem with playing with something else. But, generally, if I have the time to work on some other art, maybe I need to put more time into my base art...

But there's one other thing I see... You expressed your wishes to your teacher, as I read it. And he acknowledged that, and said he'd take care of it. Then you go outside... From his point of view, you might well seem a bit ungrateful and impatient. And it doesn't seem like you even let him know, he "found out." He might be working on a plan to develop the skills you want in the way he feels is appropriate for you... and you're not spending that time on what he needs you to learn to move to his chi sau or his boxing...

 

[Argus]

I think jks and Flying Crane hit the nail on the head.

One more thing you may want to consider though. What is your reason for wanting to learn other skills? For example, you mention expressing interest in Chi-sau. This makes no sense to me unless you intend on learning, and focusing on Wing Chun specifically. I can tell you off the bat that without extensive training in Wing Chun, you're unlikely to get any benefit from Chi-sau. And even if you can somehow learn to practice it correctly, it's probably going to be building bad habits and practices for your other training.

In the end, you just wind up with poor chi-sau and poor kung-fu. So if you're going to learn something outside your system, make sure that you can keep the two as separate as possible, and study each in its own right. When you do that, you can gleam insight from each, but if you try mixing methods, you won't get what each of the methods is actually aiming to accomplish, or the principles that make them work effectively.

 

[K-man]

I think jks and Flying Crane hit the nail on the head.

One more thing you may want to consider though. What is your reason for wanting to learn other skills? For example, you mention expressing interest in Chi-sau. This makes no sense to me unless you intend on learning, and focusing on Wing Chun specifically. I can tell you off the bat that without extensive training in Wing Chun, you're unlikely to get any benefit from Chi-sau. And even if you can somehow learn to practice it correctly, it's probably going to be building bad habits and practices for your other training.

In the end, you just wind up with poor chi-sau and poor kung-fu. So if you're going to learn something outside your system, make sure that you can keep the two as separate as possible, and study each in its own right. When you do that, you can gleam insight from each, but if you try mixing methods, you won't get what each of the methods is actually aiming to accomplish, or the principles that make them work effectively.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Karate was developed from Kung fu. If you are practising karate for sport you have absolutely no need for chi sau. If you are practising karate for self defence, I would suggest chi sau is an important part of the training. We train it every session. :asian:

 

[Cyriacus]

Ive known a couple of organizations thatll outright kick you out if you train at another club.
Listen, what he thinks is valuable to you is totally meaningless. Forget him. Hes just a teacher. You do whatever YOU want to do. If you wanna do the other class, he can whine and complain all he wants, its your call. Not his.

 

[Instructor]

My teacher and I both dabble in other martial arts. We tend to discourage it in lower ranking students but are okay with it for higher ranking students.

 

[Flying Crane]

Ive known a couple of organizations thatll outright kick you out if you train at another club.
Listen, what he thinks is valuable to you is totally meaningless. Forget him. Hes just a teacher. You do whatever YOU want to do. If you wanna do the other class, he can whine and complain all he wants, its your call. Not his.

well, only if he still wants to keep training with his sifu. Sure, he can do whatever he wants, but it may end the training he's been doing. If he's OK with that, then no problem. But if he wants to keep that relationship and training with his sifu, then it matters.

 

[Cyriacus]

well, only if he still wants to keep training with his sifu. Sure, he can do whatever he wants, but it may end the training he's been doing. If he's OK with that, then no problem. But if he wants to keep that relationship and training with his sifu, then it matters.

Yeah, that may have been colored by me not caring. It isnt a teachers place to tell me what i do and dont want or what i can or cant do. I cant sympathise with wanting sifu to be happy.

 

[Argus]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Karate was developed from Kung fu. If you are practising karate for sport you have absolutely no need for chi sau. If you are practising karate for self defence, I would suggest chi sau is an important part of the training. We train it every session. :asian:

Really? Do you practice the forms or anything?

It's just hard for me to imagine someone practicing Chisau well without first developing the right structure and movements/positions alone, which can take some time to learn even if you're training WC specifically. And then... are you using your Karate in your chisau, or just your Wing Chun? From what I have seen and done of Karate, most styles seem pretty incompatible to me. But then, I realize that there's a lot of diversity in Karate, and that many styles of it borrow from a number of other arts successfully. So, perhaps adopting Chisau is not so far fetched.

One thing I will say I am most impressed with is the open-mindedness of most Karate practitioners. In general, I find them much more open to learning from other systems than most martial artists.

 

[Flying Crane]

Yeah, that may have been colored by me not caring. It isnt a teachers place to tell me what i do and dont want or what i can or cant do. I cant sympathise with wanting sifu to be happy.

I guess it comes down to making a decision whether or not he wants to keep training with sifu, or if it's time for him to move on.

Personally, if I think someone has something to teach me and I become his student, them I'm gonna do what he tells me. He's the teacher, by becoming his student I've made a decision to trust his judgement and accept his guidance and train how he tells me to train.

If I want to do something that he feels isn't the right way to go about it, then I need to stop being his student and move on.

Sometimes you don't get to have it both ways. Sure, he can make his decisions to do what he wants, sifu-be-damned. But Sifu can also make his own decisions, student-be-damned, and he can eject student from his school. So if student wants to keep training his Five Animals kung fu AND train boxing AND explore chi sao outside of his Five Animals, well Sifu actually does have something to say about that, and the answer may be that he no longer gets instruction in Five Animals. That's Sifu's choice to make.

So the OP needs to decide what he wants and be prepared to accept whatever consequences come from his decisions. And deciding it's time to move on to something else is a perfectly legitimate decision to make, if he feels that's the best thing for him to do.

 

[EddieCyrax]

My primary MA focus is Shaolin Kempo. It is what I spend 90% of my training in. With this said, I have a friend that started his own dojo instructing BJJ. I train with his school once a week. These two MAs are so different that I have not had any issue keeping them separate. The BJJ has actually improved my application of my SK, as I can see different opportunities that were blind to me prior.

My instructor has no issues with this cross-training, but perhaps this is because the BJJ does not interfere with my SK.

 

[Mauthos]

Pretty much the same here. I mainly train and teach American Kenpo but I also train Tang Soo Do and Kick boxing and do not have any difficulties keeping them all separate and so far my instructors are fine with it as, especially with the Tang Soo and Kick boxing my kicking has got much better than if I just trained the Kenpo (not as much emphasis on kicking).

Also, as far back as I can remember I have cross trained in several different arts and all my instructors have been more than happy with it insisting that it would only improve me as a martial artist.

 

[TaiChiTJ]

However, if that outside training interferes with, or stunts the growth, or prevents us from developing our skills in what he is teaching us, then it becomes counter-productive

Flying Crane hit the nail squarely on the head. That is the crux of the issue.

I'm a bit surprised here though. I would think 5 animal would have some form of two person work that, while obviously not wing chun, would offer interesting and challenging experience. This does not exist at all in the syllabus?

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

General Question: Does your Teacher get upset when you take another MA class while you are enrolled in his class?

Here is my issue, I have been enrolled in a 5 animal Kung Fu class for a few years and have asked the instructor about learning other skills like Chi Sau or other boxing skills that are outside his curriculum to expand my skill set. He seems to be ok with me asking but we never work on anything else but his program. I ended up joining an informal class outside the dojo that teaches some of the other skills I wanted to learn on my free nights. When my instructor found out that I was learning other stuff he became very upset and wanted me to stop what I was doing because he did not feel the other skills I was learning were of any value. While I am loyal to my instructor to a point, I am getting a bit annoyed that he is trying to tell me what I can and cannot learn.

Any advice would be most helpful.

thanks

djsHowatt

A lot isn't what you say but how you say it. I don't exactly what your sifu said to you, but expressing it like this:

well, I have a very old-school Chinese sifu and he says that outside of class we can do whatever we want, including training in other methods. However, if that outside training interferes with, or stunts the growth, or prevents us from developing our skills in what he is teaching us, then it becomes counter-productive and ya really ought to decide what it is that you want to do, and then focus your time and energy there.

What I've found in the Chinese arts is that when taught and trained correctly, there is a specific methodology in how a technique is developed. On the surface, one punch may look the same as another, but the specific mechanics of delivery can be quite different, and are not always obvious to the untrained or uneducated eye. So, if your sifu's system has a punching methodology and you go off to train boxing on the side, well the methodology of boxing might be dissimilar enough to your sifu's method, that it actually causes your kung fu punching to deteriorate. So the from his point of view, why is he wasting his time and effort in trying to teach you? If you are interested in boxing, and if boxing isn't methodically compatible with what he is teaching you, then you just create confusion in your own training. When you punch in kung fu, your punches are "tainted" by boxing and aren't quite right. And when you punch in boxing, your punches are "tainted" by your kung fu, and aren't quite right.

I think experiencing several different methods is an important part of the journey, in discovering what is best for you. But eventually it works best if you pick one method and stick with it.

... addresses your question and respects your intelligence by giving you a thoughtful explanation of why he would rather you not train in another style or styles, whereas saying, "I am sifu, and you must do as I say" just irks students who have a mind of their own, especially when that student has expressed specific training goals.

It seems that you have expressed goals that he seems to approve of, and which may be met in the scope of his teaching, but which he is for whatever reason not addressing in his teaching and not giving you any indication that they will be addressed in his teaching.

I'm with Flying Crane on this one, but that viewpoint can, as he demonstrated, be expressed in a way that addresses your training goals and communicates his teaching methods, and which respects you as his student. The 'I am sifu, do as I say' method simply causes friction and creates distrust between student and teacher.

 

[harlan]

Exactly what I was going to ask. Maybe not 'chi sau' exactly, but surely there are two-person drills that incorporate the system's ideas of movement and principles?

I'm a bit surprised here though. I would think 5 animal would have some form of two person work that, while obviously not wing chun, would offer interesting and challenging experience. This does not exist at all in the syllabus?