Legitimacy in the MA

[stone_dragone]

There have been numerous discussions on this forum and others regarding the topic of “legitimacy.” For some it is to be desired, to others it is to be expected. A common thread in all of the discussions is often that a person is somehow less of a martial artist if they fail to have a “legitimate link” to a master in the art’s home of origin, and by the same logic is less of a teacher to their students as they pass their bastardization on to another “illegitimate” generation.

Don’t get me wrong…I am not talking about someone who is willfully lying to prospective students regarding their lineage. Such a person should be exposed in a civil manner and the students given the truth. But, what’s next? It is the students that I am concerned about. What about the dedicated student, who through years of hard practice and study have developed skills on their own, regardless of their “illegitimate” nature. The instructor merely passed along the erroneous lineage information that he was given. Good teacher, strong foundation, excellent ability to transmit ideas and concepts. To me, it is the teacher’s lineage that is in question…not their abilities. Does the teacher have strong fundamentals and more advanced knowledge? Yes. Does he pass those fundamentals, principles and concepts to the next generation? Yes. Does he have a “legitimate” black belt lineage through the art’s founder? That is the part that is in question.

Oftentimes there are jokes, asides and snide remarks regarding a person who learned from any source other than a “legitimate” inheritor of a system or instructor with direct ties to the art’s country of origin. The reality is that there are those people who are excellent martial artists without the trappings of a long family tree; people who have never had the good fortune of studying with an “accredited” high ranking instructor from their chosen art.

If a musician teaches himself how to play the piano (or better yet, learns from a book), does it mean that he is not really a piano player because he didn’t go to Julliard School of Music? Should he stop telling people he is an accomplished piano player? If he then teaches his grandson how to play piano and read music, does that mean that his son isn’t a real musician? Is he, somehow, a fraud? I agree that if he claims to have played at Carnegie Hall and never did, and is making money from a false reputation, then that is fraud and a crime. If his grandson, on the other hand, realizes that “Pappy” wasn’t telling the truth and teaches his students under no such pretense, then I see it as a name redeemed and an art passed on to the next generation.

In another forum, I have found some accomplished martial artists who have devoted their lives to their chosen art, only to find that they has been duped in regards to the “legitimacy” of their instructors. People say “they can still practice martial arts, just don’t call it ***jutsu.” What would they call it, then? It isn’t one thing and it isn’t the other. Does their teacher’s lies somehow detract from their own abilities? Should they be kept from teaching students because their skills came from training with a fraud? I say “no” on both accounts.

I submit that the martial arts, specifically my chosen art of Karate, are folk arts. They are designed to be passed from person to person, generation to generation, changed and adapted. That which is strong will remain and those changes that aren’t will go to the wayside. Sometimes information is passed by books (such as the Bubishi or Tao of Jeet Kun Do). As technology improves, the number of methods that information can be transmitted increases. People don’t change. There will always be those who are drawn to teach what they know to others, regardless of the method that they learned it. Knowledge is knowledge, skills are skills, regardless of their source. True skills can come only from hard work. Solid knowledge comes through study, analysis and application. “Who is your teacher?” is a more important question than “who was his teacher?”

 

[bobster_ice]

Nice post man.

 

[patroldawg27]

True, just because someone was taught by a well known master somewhere along the lines doesn't necessarily mean that it's trickled down perfectly.

 

[Robert Lee]

I think at least first A person must have a martial art back ground to look futher into learning from vidios or books. Because some kind of foundation has to come from real training aspects to give good understanding. Now as far as learning from who. it boils down to what they say they are instructing.. If itssome thing they came up with call it what it is. If it is a given art. then it has some kind of structure. Many a instructor breaks away from a organization base these days does not mean they now know nothing. They start a new linage per say. What i have seen is people get a 1st degree blackbelt never really learn more and boom they are a 5th dan in no time. Some go as far as buy some videos and then order a belt. When you instruct contact type M/A you do not have to have some kind of direct linage. you are not giving rank but martialapplications. Or MMA type. Alot of people train the M/A in many styles If your instructor trained from someone that passed down the art who cares i guess i am saying if you tell some one you are teaching say kenpo. it would be best that you did train and get rank in kenpo In the end there is no style just people doing what they do But any art has a foundation first.

 

[green meanie]

Excellent post. :asian:

 

[tshadowchaser]

excellent post but I still have major probelms from instructors who openly lie to their student about their lineage. am not saying a good student may not come from these "teachers", hust that what they teach is a lie. Takeing something feom a book or viedo nd saying it was learned from a make belive teache is just wrong .
And what happens when the student learns or is told the truth, do they care or is their rank more important than knowing an accepting the truth that they have ben duped by an fraud

 

[patroldawg27]

I agree that instructors shouldn't lie to their students. If you don't know the particular lineage then say so and prove your worth through actions. I know of a few so called major chain McDojo's that do just that. Lie and con their students. Unfortunately I think it's kind of one of those "dirty secrets" of the martial arts community that not many people wanna tread into. Part of the reason I like it here at MT is the Horror Stories section. People need to know when schools or instructors may be sketchy con artists.

 

[Phadrus00]

Stone_dragone,

First of all let me compliment you on an excellent post with an excellent thesis! I think you have submitted a very insightful and compelling argument. *grin*

I have been ruminating on your post most of the day trying to devine my own thoughts. I have distilled it down to two schools of thought: the "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" versus the "There is no staus quo in nature" schools. These are my own personal labels and let me explain.

"Standing on the shoulders of Giants" is drawn from a quote by Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to Robert Hooke that went: "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." I would submit that this is indeed the basic premise of the traditional school structure in which the original master gathers a body of work and then subsequent generations carry that on and enhances it within the lattitudes of the original framework. It is a belief that the founder has created a body of wisdom and that all practicioners can leverage that wisdom and add perhaps a small amount to it but ultmately owe the bulk of their prowess to their lineage of teachers. In this case the issue of linage is greatly important and legitamacy is paramount.

"There is no staus quo in nature" is a very different, pragmatic view. It is premised on the idea that no thing, being, idea or system is ever really static. We percieve things as being "stable" but in reality there are only two states in nature, Growth and Decay. Thus if you are not Growing you are not, as you might think, "staying the same" but rather you are in fact Decaying even though you may not be aware of it. This concept aplied to a Martial Art is that if it is not Growing and actively adding in new ideas, new concepts and reacting the the changing world around it then it is in Decline and is losing relevance with respect to the outside world.

The second school of thought is a scary one! It means that we cannot rest on our laurels. It means that we cannot assume that because we have reached a level of ability today that we will have the same level of capability, relative to the outside world, tommorow. The first school of thought assures us that we have reached new heights and are laying the foundation for our next generation to achieve even greater skills, while the latter school makes no such assurances and leaves future generations to fend for themselves.

Which is true? I think these are polar extremes in thinkg and that reality is somewhere in the middle. The tradiionalist in me wants to beleive that in the first school, the pragmatic martial artist in me realizes the cautious wisdom on the second. Growth and Decay are harsh realities but ones with much evidence. Let's perform a little thought experiment.

Today you are at skill level X. You train tomorrow and at some level when you go to sleep you are at skill level X+1. But if the day after that you don't train where are you? You didn't forget anything in a day so you probably think you are at X+1, same as you were when you went to sleep. But what if you didn't train for a month? Well I think we could all agree you are at some diminished skill level, X-1 we shall say. You lost skill somewhere along in that 30 days of not training. It didn't happen all at once at the end of the 29th day.. it happened in tiny little bits all along. Your skills were decaying not growing. You are always in one of the two states, either growing or decaying, never staying completely the same.

All systems experience this. Skills are handed down from generation to generation and loose some fidelity. It is inevitable. But each practicioner has the option of embracing the art and adding to it. Finding out solutions to problems that the founders never encountered. Adding and growing and then passing on. But we must have a foundation to do this from. You can't make silk purses out of saow's ears. Lineage is important in that it is the input for the next generation and while we must not be afraid to add and subtract to it we still want the highest quality as a starting point.

As instructors we are given seeds from our instructors. It is up to us to grow them into something, to cultivate them and perhaps even to cross them with other seeds to create something better adapted to the soil we will plant them in. Perhaps it is something beautiful or something very useful, or perhaps a combination of both. The possibilities within those seeds are defined by the lineage, the actualization of their potential is the responsibility of the gardener.

As a student we need to find Good Gardeners. As a Gardener we need to find good Seeds. Beautiful Gardens have had the benefit of both.

Rob

 

[Robert Lee]

excellent post but I still have major probelms from instructors who openly lie to their student about their lineage. am not saying a good student may not come from these "teachers", hust that what they teach is a lie. Takeing something feom a book or viedo nd saying it was learned from a make belive teache is just wrong .
And what happens when the student learns or is told the truth, do they care or is their rank more important than knowing an accepting the truth that they have ben duped by an fraud

Right you should not say so and so taught you this rank level if you learned it froma book or video. Now i still think you can learn something from each IF you have spent the time learning a M/A as you can see past what is being said or demonstrated. But that is for your gain. Now if taught be truthful. But As said i still see more people being more or less self promoted now days never telling there students they did not earn that rank but Who suffers is the students when the truth comes out. Droping the rank system Well that would help. But agin people like that status Thats why some cheat We do not need laws to govern this. Time often takes care of things I have a few older videos of some now more well known Instructors that if I showed to different people they would be shocked as to how bad these people looked just a few years ago. But I will not. And I know they have improved But there past is not as great as they preach. Heck we all know people that over rate there self. It hurts them by liveing there story. We have to live our way that counts And as i said In the end there is NO style or way at all. Because The real M/A has no style or way. just a method of training that brings a person results. And if people are happy that they learned does it matter so much that the person was not trained by another person. Look at Bruce Lee He evolved so much from what he read watched and put together. But He was honest and did not say Some one taught him all that. Honest truth and you can teach what others want to learn and feel good about what you do. Just keeping it honest Say you put it together and it works for you and when it works for someone else Then you helped some one walk down a path they made there own. Lie and they still do but later find they were lied to and you loose respect from them. But If my neighbor come up with something that would benifit me a little more. I would look into it i was told long ago even the person you think is very dumb can still teach you something. Thats whats great about people we learn from so much from the little to the large. And its all ours after we learn it. now how we use it is what makes some just a little better in doing something.

 

[stone_dragone]

I don't want anybody to be mistaken about my faith in the teacher-student transmission method. Also, don't think that I wouldn't jump at any opportunity to study under great instructors, masters and what-have-you. The ability to tap into the unbroken line referred to in the "Shoulders of Giants" discussion is of immeasurable benefit.

I have to agree with Robert Lee and say that although there is benefit to such opportunity, the creative and intuitive ability of an individual should not be underestimated. Since the human body can only move in so many ways, it is very feasible to have a basic understanding in a skill set combined with an astute physical intuition. Add these to a natural gift for instruction and you have a teacher with little traditional training but the ability to transmit concepts and principles that could rival any big organization's "certified instructors." (BTW...not talkin' about me, here)

A man can be his own moral yardstick, but in the matter of personal skill evaluation he can't be his own judge. I can't read a book, absorb it and promote myself to 7th Dan...nor would I want to. Rank, if it's to have any meaning, needs to come from a third party. Any instructor that makes money off of a false claim is a fraud and a thief. Period. This, however, doesn't take away the knowledge of his students. If a high school student studies math with the same teacher, from pre-algebra to pre-calculus, aces the SATs and afterwards finds out that the teacher forged his College diploma and state teaching certificate, does that mean that the student's SATs are invalid? I say not. He still knows the math and is rather skilled at it. The teacher can no longer be considered a mentor since his career is based on a lie, but his former students still know their stuff.

What is considered better (if the subject is the same)...learning from a good teacher at Harvard or an excellent teacher at ButlerCountyCommunity College?

BTW, Rob (Phadrus), I take it as the highest compliment that a man of your eloquence spent as much time as you did formulating further discussion. Plato would be proud.

 

[Last Fearner]

I concur with much of what is being said here on one level, but I believe there is more to be considered. How much can one person learn in a lifetime? If they are discovering it all on their own, they are wasting time reinventing the wheel. No one's life is long enough to learn all that the Martial Art has to offer without "standing on the shoulders of Giants" who came before them.

The full knowledge of the Martial Art was not created by one person, or one generation for each person in each subesequent generation to say, "oh, I got it, now I am going to expand on it to make it better." It took many generations to discover, gather, and learn all of this knowledge, and it would take a person at least a half of a lifetime (50 years or more) to begin to understand it. We all contribute to modern application, but at the core is the unchanging truth.

Many of the comments here about the student's skills which might come from a fraudulent instructor are accurate in the context of "skill" being what it is, and you can't take that away from the student. However, it is my opinion that there is so much more to geunine, "legitimate" Martial Art education than how good the person can fight, punch, kick, throw, or grapple. They might be excellent technicians from that fraudulent instructor, but if that person was a fraud, there are likely things of a more philosophical, spiritual, and indepth knowledge training that were lacking because the fraudulent instructor had not been trained by someone legitimate, who was, in turn, trained by someone legitimate.

All too often, today's Mixed Martial Art mentality, Tae-bo craze, and I'll promote myself in my own "style" because I earned 1st Dan in ****jutsu-do, and now I understand what the Martial Art is all about, has created a generation of unbalanced physically develped fighters who lack the key elements of what the "Martial Art" really is. Now, this is not to say that there are not exceptions to the rule, Bruce Lee was perhaps one of the exceptions. Yet, those who new him best know that he spent too much time reinventing the wheel, and rediscovering what was already known, and re-packaging it in his own system that he did not live long enough to scratch the surface of his full potential.

Pianist can play piano, and mathematicians can calculate numbers, but a Martial Artist is much more than the sum of their skills on the mat (or in the street). These things you do not learn from books, videos, the internet, or conversations with your neighbor. A student who has been duped, might be a skilled technician, but I believe they need to take what they know to a legitimate source, get tested for whatever level is appropriate, and start learning the rest of the Art that the fraudulent instructor could not offer.

This is my opinion,
CM D. J. Eisenhart

 

[Jonathan Randall]

I concur with much of what is being said here on one level, but I believe there is more to be considered. How much can one person learn in a lifetime? If they are discovering it all on their own, they are wasting time reinventing the wheel. No one's life is long enough to learn all that the Martial Art has to offer without "standing on the shoulders of Giants" who came before them.

The full knowledge of the Martial Art was not created by one person, or one generation for each person in each subesequent generation to say, "oh, I got it, now I am going to expand on it to make it better." It took many generations to discover, gather, and learn all of this knowledge, and it would take a person at least a half of a lifetime (50 years or more) to begin to understand it. We all contribute to modern application, but at the core is the unchanging truth.

Many of the comments here about the student's skills which might come from a fraudulent instructor are accurate in the context of "skill" being what it is, and you can't take that away from the student. However, it is my opinion that there is so much more to geunine, "legitimate" Martial Art education than how good the person can fight, punch, kick, throw, or grapple. They might be excellent technicians from that fraudulent instructor, but if that person was a fraud, there are likely things of a more philosophical, spiritual, and indepth knowledge training that were lacking because the fraudulent instructor had not been trained by someone legitimate, who was, in turn, trained by someone legitimate.

All too often, today's Mixed Martial Art mentality, Tae-bo craze, and I'll promote myself in my own "style" because I earned 1st Dan in ****jutsu-do, and now I understand what the Martial Art is all about, has created a generation of unbalanced physically develped fighters who lack the key elements of what the "Martial Art" really is. Now, this is not to say that there are not exceptions to the rule, Bruce Lee was perhaps one of the exceptions. Yet, those who new him best know that he spent too much time reinventing the wheel, and rediscovering what was already known, and re-packaging it in his own system that he did not live long enough to scratch the surface of his full potential.

Pianist can play piano, and mathematicians can calculate numbers, but a Martial Artist is much more than the sum of their skills on the mat (or in the street). These things you do not learn from books, videos, the internet, or conversations with your neighbor. A student who has been duped, might be a skilled technician, but I believe they need to take what they know to a legitimate source, get tested for whatever level is appropriate, and start learning the rest of the Art that the fraudulent instructor could not offer.

This is my opinion,
CM D. J. Eisenhart

Darn fine post, sir. :asian:

 

[Don Roley]

I think I should point out some points.

First of all, someone in my art talked about how some people tend to have a, "800 year old security blanket." And I have seen that with my own eyes. Some people think that just because someone else did well with the art at some point in time, then they are assured of the same.

On the other hand, I have seen a lot of folks that have created their own arts that really have never used it in real life- let alone enough to build up a statisital model.

I have seen good practicioners of both new and old arts.

And I know that we are not talking about folks that lie about who they trained with. Those types we can all agree are just scum.

If someone is truthfull about what they do, then that really should be enough to say they are legit in my book.

But I have jumped up and down on folks here on martialtalk who want to do their own thing with swords. They don't want to learn from a tradition that actually leads back to a person who used a sword in real combat. They want to learn things from videos, maybe a seminar or two, and then do what they want and say they are just as legit as Kashima Shinto ryu.

They are idiots.

I think the defining thing here is that some people are not willing to learn everything they can before they go off in their own direction. No one can know all the answers. Even with pistol techniques you can't expect someone trying out a new idea to get into a firefight just to see if it works. How would you go about trying to get it?

But you do try to get all you can when you take on that responsibility. In sword arts the very least would seem to be to get real instruction every week for several years until you reach a high level and are allowed to teach the most inner secrets. For firearms you seek out all the accounts of real gun fights and take classes from other instructors. For martial arts you would constantly be looking over reports of real violence and seeking out new teachers.

But just as the traditionalists sometimes think that the experience of others justifies them puttin their head in the sand, I know of very few people who start their own arts today who drop their sensei role and go out and seek out new experiences and lessons. They declare themselves the master and that is where they remain for the rest of their life. I have seen that time and time again.

I would treat an art that was totally honest as being legit. But I would not treat anyone who did not try their hardest to be good for the sake of their students as being worthy.

 

[stone_dragone]

Well said, Don. Well said.:asian:

 

[Robert Lee]

The concepts held with in the M/A culture are for the most part to broad in training. If you look at something that takes many years to go through the training method. That being learning new ways to do the same thing. It becomes a over burden of learning. Most arts need a overhaul to restore them to a performance of use that is workable in a shorter time line. taking the more productive tools in discarding the rest that are done in aspect of the same line defence method but are less effective. Most TMA have added features frome different areas beyond there original foundation. That was oberved from the next generation instructors of that style. When you look at most any style you see repeat applications and find at the higher rank level some of those application best meet the need. I like others I have trained with And met have spoke of some of the higher After black belt tools were better to use and why couldnt they be given at a earlyer stage. There is some good foundation training tools below black belt level to. But like I have said why do the same defence aspect with a less effective tool when the better tools work more often. So decrease in long ago put together M/A arts breaths new life in over all performance. Now that is just part of what M/A training offers, but it is the training goal that real milatary use of the M/A wants and needs to be able to perform in a short time. There should be no so called secret training methods. no hidden truths in the modern M/A world as the M/A is a out dated war machine But yet still a effective fighting method worth presurveing for future results. So many styles with just little differences proves related methods. Rounding the different combat applications. stand up,clench ,and ground in which several arts employee within there method of delivery. But are trained in aspect by each instructor and what grows out of FAD in away, much less new tool training is needed to become very good at a shorter time line. THEN you have that years of training the core quality foundation gives you that you improve and improve on. Look at ring fights point fights ect. even your own students sparing see really how liitle of what they have been instructed on is used during the live action of resistive training. Meaning several of the training applications are useless to them more often then ever useful. Look at just the western boxer with a small tool box of what 4, 5 hands that being different type strikeing application variances compounded to the different strike areas and delivery methods of the same strike .The now 4 ,5 hands become many because of delivery. And any good boxer can go hands with most every M/A person out there today no matter if the M/A person is 1 st dan to 8th dan. The average pro boxer started training at a younger level perhaps trained those few hand deliverys for 5 to say 15 years kept improveing on the short small tool box. Yet the average M/A person built and built a large tool chest of tools Just in hand delivery And can not often win aginst the average boxer much less a pro. Meaning they spent to much time adding which takes to much time for good delivery training. Then the life time of learning your art is learning less effective applications added from the past. The person in each art breaths life to there performance And the best person you would know in that given art would tell you they have areas in that they can perform and others that they can not. Look at some of the arts with Kata that changes just little each step. Why not find the kata that includes the needed foundation of that phase train the student longer at that level so they understand more then move them on to some thing higher I mean some katas add say 2 ,3 movements to there structure and the rest is the same as the last Are those movements needed because say the third generation instructor put them there because he felt it helped his students progress better. But he was never taught it that way What I see is the wheel does not need reinvented but the wheel needs a new tire some times .Back to Bruce he cut away did develop a method that was fresh for a M/A method JKD is a live training ground method with foundation training geared for a 2 man resistive and compliant training. Kata is solo but many loose because they fail to break down the applications. Which to some is Bunki of that kata 2 man offence defence method. Bruce new to learn better you had to get your hands dirty. Past greats new that, the new greats know that method has to be tested to stay alive trusting method that has little to no application gets rust and becomes less useful A boxer tests his small tool box often thats why there hands are in my books more effective then so many M/a practitioners. A person does not have to go out beyond there given style to add and add. it is good to look at other styles to help improve your attack defence options on performance though. Its better to strive and hopefully produce better students then you are your self in performance So they in turn carry on the art in a strong fashion not clones, not robots, of pretty looking movements. But people who understand applications and can demonstrate the resistive performance that keeps life in the art. A instructor has to have that key foundation. Learn it from a inspired source hand it down with strong understanding not blind faith ,do not lie to look better show in showing proves what is. even instructors many are not that great fighter but they are that great teacher that makes those great people find some thing . Honor in the M/A has reduced in some areas, can not do the challenge thing theses days go to a questionable school and challenge the instructor to a fight in front of the students to hopefully have him leave town because he may be a fraud. Just have to be sure you and other instructors do there part There is NO best art and no worst art and a lot of people teaching all over the world now days. for every good shcool there is one better,for every bad school there is one that is worse then that. Mcdojo is a new name and alot of people judge them wrong Because in the TMA the MMA type or others see it as non proven out dated. that is wrong so they brand many as a mcdojo When in fact many a person starts there base line at a TMA type stays or evolves to a different art. Thats choice. A school should do the best they can Stop the 1 year black belt stop the you paid your dues heres a belt. and just train ,people still come if they see they are learning something good. Then what goes away Those instructors in question on this thread. not all but theres a start
​

​

 

[Phadrus00]

If a high school student studies math with the same teacher, from pre-algebra to pre-calculus, aces the SATs and afterwards finds out that the teacher forged his College diploma and state teaching certificate, does that mean that the student's SATs are invalid? I say not. He still knows the math and is rather skilled at it. The teacher can no longer be considered a mentor since his career is based on a lie, but his former students still know their stuff.

This is an excellent point and analogy. If the Student were always constrained by the teachings of the Instructor we would never progress in ANY field. It is the new insight of the student that adds to any field and exceeds the understanding of the instructor that allows that field to grow.

What is considered better (if the subject is the same)...learning from a good teacher at Harvard or an excellent teacher at ButlerCountyCommunity College?

This is an interesting questions and one we wrestle with in many areas of life. Should we be a true Meritocracy where we are all evaluated purely on our demonstable abilities or are we given credit for our backgrounds. In some cases it makes sense because we associate a high degree of quality with certain institutions be they Harvard for Law or the Olympics for sports.

To return to your example, how can we know if the Good Teacher at Harvard was good only in comparison to the other excellent teachers there or Good with respect to some objective measure of all teachers. Is the Excellent teacher Excellent in relations to the local teachers or again to some objective measure and who sets this objective measure.

We associate value to tradiion and history. We assume that if an institution produces a higher than average number of excellent alumni then that institution has developed an approach that is superior and we give it the benefit of the doubt in evaluating any of it's graduates.

Of course this can have a negative effect because we know that not ALL students from a given institution will be excellent, there is after-all a bell curve of performance. So the Calculus of evaluating anyone still must factor in the actual capabilities of the individual. We have developed this approach to make the selection process easier. We don't want to have to always conduct extensive testing everytime we want to hire an employee, or retain the services of a lawyer or accountant. As students we don't want to have to conduct extensive research on who the Instructor is before studying and certainly as Instructors we don't want to have to endure a test everytime a student want to join our school.

BTW, Rob (Phadrus), I take it as the highest compliment that a man of your eloquence spent as much time as you did formulating further discussion. Plato would be proud.

You are too kind Sir...

Rob

 

[eismann31]

Sensei,

First, that is an excellent post.

Second, I can identify with the musician analogy. I started playing guitar by reading books. When I was in college I studied music theory as well. Of course, I didn't go to a critically acclaimed music school, but I still gained knowledge and skills. Later, I studied with a few instructors. No matter what an instructor is teaching, there are some good instructors and some bad instructors. Ultimately, the student gains or suffers depending on the type of instructor. The first guitar instructor that I paid to teach me was horrible. He did not know how to read music. All he knew was music tablature. There were a few times that he canceled lessons without telling me. Eventually, he quit, but I did learn something that I didn't know prior to his instruction. The next instructor was excellent. He taught me a lot about music and playing guitar, but he disappeared as well. After that. here is my point. Regardless of the lineage and talent of the instructor important knowledge can be gained. I personally would not continue to pay a poor instructor regardless of his lineage. I could care less about lineage personally. As a fairly new student to the martial arts, I want to learn. When an instructor has nothing more to teach me, then I will move to another instructor. If I don't think that something I am being taught is useful, then I will discard it.
Even if the lineage is pure, does each generation truly capture the founders style completely?

 

[eismann31]

That was well said, Sensei!
While fraud is fraud, the transmission of valuable skills and techniques is vitally important to the success of any instructor and student. I agree that fraudulant lineage claims should only dishonor the instructor not the student who has dedicated himself or herself in good faith to the art presented.

 

[HKphooey]

Great Posts!

 

[D.Cobb]

There have been numerous discussions on this forum and others regarding the topic of “legitimacy.” For some it is to be desired, to others it is to be expected. A common thread in all of the discussions is often that a person is somehow less of a martial artist if they fail to have a “legitimate link” to a master in the art’s home of origin, and by the same logic is less of a teacher to their students as they pass their bastardization on to another “illegitimate” generation.

Don’t get me wrong…I am not talking about someone who is willfully lying to prospective students regarding their lineage. Such a person should be exposed in a civil manner and the students given the truth. But, what’s next? It is the students that I am concerned about. What about the dedicated student, who through years of hard practice and study have developed skills on their own, regardless of their “illegitimate” nature. The instructor merely passed along the erroneous lineage information that he was given. Good teacher, strong foundation, excellent ability to transmit ideas and concepts. To me, it is the teacher’s lineage that is in question…not their abilities. Does the teacher have strong fundamentals and more advanced knowledge? Yes. Does he pass those fundamentals, principles and concepts to the next generation? Yes. Does he have a “legitimate” black belt lineage through the art’s founder? That is the part that is in question.

Oftentimes there are jokes, asides and snide remarks regarding a person who learned from any source other than a “legitimate” inheritor of a system or instructor with direct ties to the art’s country of origin. The reality is that there are those people who are excellent martial artists without the trappings of a long family tree; people who have never had the good fortune of studying with an “accredited” high ranking instructor from their chosen art.

If a musician teaches himself how to play the piano (or better yet, learns from a book), does it mean that he is not really a piano player because he didn’t go to Julliard School of Music? Should he stop telling people he is an accomplished piano player? If he then teaches his grandson how to play piano and read music, does that mean that his son isn’t a real musician? Is he, somehow, a fraud? I agree that if he claims to have played at Carnegie Hall and never did, and is making money from a false reputation, then that is fraud and a crime. If his grandson, on the other hand, realizes that “Pappy” wasn’t telling the truth and teaches his students under no such pretense, then I see it as a name redeemed and an art passed on to the next generation.

In another forum, I have found some accomplished martial artists who have devoted their lives to their chosen art, only to find that they has been duped in regards to the “legitimacy” of their instructors. People say “they can still practice martial arts, just don’t call it ***jutsu.” What would they call it, then? It isn’t one thing and it isn’t the other. Does their teacher’s lies somehow detract from their own abilities? Should they be kept from teaching students because their skills came from training with a fraud? I say “no” on both accounts.

I submit that the martial arts, specifically my chosen art of Karate, are folk arts. They are designed to be passed from person to person, generation to generation, changed and adapted. That which is strong will remain and those changes that aren’t will go to the wayside. Sometimes information is passed by books (such as the Bubishi or Tao of Jeet Kun Do). As technology improves, the number of methods that information can be transmitted increases. People don’t change. There will always be those who are drawn to teach what they know to others, regardless of the method that they learned it. Knowledge is knowledge, skills are skills, regardless of their source. True skills can come only from hard work. Solid knowledge comes through study, analysis and application. “Who is your teacher?” is a more important question than “who was his teacher?”

Oft times, I would say that legitimacy is more the requirement of the student that wants someone to emulate. When I first got serious in my martial arts training, I wanted to learn a style that would teach me how to fight well. As I matured in the arts, I wanted a style that would help me grow as a human being.

And that's where it all fell apart for me. My first teacher that I looked to as a mentor, turned out to be a liar and a cheat. He was fraudulent at best when discussing his martial arts back ground. Initially he taught some effective, viable martial arts, but then everything went soft. There were even black belts complaing about the contact to their arms, when they were blocking punches. I earned my first dan and then my second dan before it all went to hell. Two or three years later, I still don't have my certificates.

I was invited by a local to a seminar he was running, and in spite of all the bad publicity this guy got I went to his seminar. This guy had a nice delivery system. It was easy to learn and seemed effective in application. He gave me the history of his system, old and ancient as it was. I liked it.

A short time later I met a man, who I knew to be self promoted. That is, he left Okinawa a 4th Dan and got off the plane in the USA a 6th Dan. He is well respected around the world in martial arts and gives seminars all over the place. He told me some truths about the local guy, and sent me a copy of a letter that he'd been sent, by the local guy, that exposed all of local guys lies. All this whilst still praising up the qualities of original fraud instructor.

And so now, I will trust no one. I have many friends in the martial arts all around the world, mostly due to martialtalk forums. If I want to know about someone or their style, I ask the people I know from this board. Usually in private emails.

If local guy had said, I learned this from books and videos, I would say no problem. As I said it is an effective delivery system, but to tell me he learned from master whoflungdung when he didn't, or when he knew that whoflungdung is a fraud anyway, that's what I find abhorent.

I have since found out that the original fraud master, spent less than 3 months in the US with another fraud Grandmaster and was awarded 6th Dan for his efforts. Apparently he earned it running up a lot of hills or something. Does this lessen the value or legitimacy of my 1st or 2nd Dans that I recieved from him? Not to me, because I know what I went through to get them. Does it make me less of a martial artist for having trained with him? I don't believe so, but if I want to start a school, I will have to create a new style, because I could not bear to associated with him in other martial artists eyes. So what will I call it? It will need to be a name that reflects that which I wish to impart to my students. It will need to reflect the culture that the philosophy of my style comes from.... That is, some kind of Japanese name if it is to be a militaristic "karate" style. Or a Chinese name steeped in symbolism if I want to follow the Quan Fa route. Or maybe I'll just give it a name that reflects the training I have done and where I am from.

Lineage adds credibility, to that which is taught as an ancient art, in the minds of some. I believe that credibility is in the honesty of the person teaching it. If I am totally honest with you about my art and where it comes from, and you find it to be effective and usable, then I have credibility and my system is legitimate.

Whew I think I've pulled a muscle in my typing digits. Sorry bout the long post.

--Dave