If you learn a system from someone, can they keep you from teaching it to others?

[bluedragon1]

He would like to have his options open. If years down the line his career isn't making him what he wants, he would like to be able to teach at night. He would also like the option to train at another club and offer his teaching serves as payment for the classes he wants to take. All this would be no where near our current area and would not affect the instructors school; If he even keeps it open at this point. We have our doubts.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

The instructors point of view is he can never teach it.

Sounds like there are no legal issues - just a jerk being a control freak.

In addition, the instructor has broken off communications with us.

Cool. That means you don't have to worry about threats of litigation or general obnoxious messages. I'm getting the feeling this is a person that your son is better off not having in his life. At this point I would suggest your son go somewhere else for future training. If the skills he learned over the last 7 years were good ones, they will serve as a foundation to build on as he begins his adult study of the martial arts.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

He would also like the option to train at another club and offer his teaching serves as payment for the classes he wants to take.

This would be highly dependent on finding another school which teaches the same system and recognizes his credentials from his previous instructor (problematic for the reasons I mentioned earlier) and needs another assistant instructor and is willing to place a very young man in that position of responsibility. It's certainly possible that he might find such an opportunity, but I wouldn't necessarily count on it. Better to plan on paying for classes normally and if an opportunity to trade teaching for tuition comes up he can take advantage of it at that time.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

He would like to have his options open. If years down the line his career isn't making him what he wants, he would like to be able to teach at night. He would also like the option to train at another club and offer his teaching serves as payment for the classes he wants to take. All this would be no where near our current area and would not affect the instructors school; If he even keeps it open at this point. We have our doubts.

I'd suggest he get some training somewhere else in the interim, to validate his existing skills. The instructor may have done a great job, or he may have taught him crap. Some time with a new set of training partners will likely tell the story. If he turns out to have learned well, then he's well on his way to being able to teach.

 

[drop bear]

Just leave this here.

Martial Arts Cults

 

[jks9199]

OK. Permission to teach...

There are things that I have been taught, that I know and understand, but that I have not been given permission to teach, or only to teach them in our class. Obviously, short of showing up and kicking my tail, he can't stop me from teaching anything. But our relationship is really based on trust. I trust my teacher to teach me well, faithfully sharing the system with me, to respect me, and he trusts me to practice what I'm taught, and to respect his wishes in what I teach, as I teach the system faithfully. For me to teach that material without permission shatters that trust.

Now, in the particular instance of the OP... It sounds a lot more like the instructor has deeper issues. His character seems suspect, from the story of his leaving the first school, all the way through this. But I also only have one side of the story here, so I won't go beyond saying things are suspect. I don't know whether there may have been misunderstandings or miscommunications. Moving the school around may have been about rent as much as anything else...

 

[bluedragon1]

Yes, the moving was due to rent. He couldn't afford his own location. So, every time the owner of the building had to move or change owners, he would have to relocate also.

 

[JR 137]

Moving often isn't inherently a bad sign. My former sensei moved 4 times in the 6 years I was with him...

Dojo 1's owner's business grew and needed the additional space, so he didn't renew my sensei's lease.

Dojo 2 was a room in a gym. My sensei hated it, but took it while he was looking for the right place. It was agreed upon to be temporary.

Dojo 3 was a debacle; my sensei overestimated his growth, and he had to leave before he went broke.

Dojo 4 was the right size and location.

He left dojo 4 a few years after I stopped training. The building was sold during that time and the new owners were a nightmare. That building's tenants turn over every other year (it's a 3 unit building). I know a different guy who rented one of the units afterward and had problems from day 1.

He's a great guy and a great teacher. Just like a house, when you rent, you're at the mercy of a landlord.

 

[WaterGal]

My son will be attending college her for 2 years, then attending a college a few hours away for two years and then he'll be gone to who knows where. He is determined for it not to be here. He's training during those 7 years was quite intensive; 4 to 6 days a week with many classes lasting over 2 hours and a ton of private lessons. It's sad to think my son will have to wait till he's out of college and train with someone another 7 years to earn legitimacy.

If the style he learned was a questionable hodge-podge style, like you suggested, and your son is serious about wanting to teach martial arts..... honestly, I'd recommend finding another place for him to train now. Look into other styles that have a large number of schools around the country, maybe ones that are part of a major national/international organization or have a reputable and relatively short lineage. BJJ, or KKW Taekwondo, for example. He'll probably be able to find a school that teaches those things most anywhere he goes to college, so he'll be able to continue his training relatively smoothly.