The responsibility of an instructor is to produce the best possible heir to his/her system. What I mean by that is that the instructor has to teach his style to his fullest potential and in doing so, the diamonds will come out of the coal.
My teacher always said "understand the principles of your style so that you can adapt to all styles of combat. In one of the replies someone said that their is no complete fighting style. Well I beg to differ, I teach 7 Star Mantis Kung Fu, mantis kung fu is taught as a fighting style for the streets not tournaments and we do cover all the ranges of combat 1) Long Range (kicking) 2) Mid-Range (punching) 3) Close-Range(trapping) 4) Take Downs and Throws 5) Weapons, if you don't think that this is a complete fighting system then I don't know what that person is looking for.
The problem with most schools is that the teaching has gone to training students for the next tournament. Let's wake up folks tournaments do not make you a fighter unless you're doing "FULL CONTACT". Train your students to survive the streets and you will see how effective your system is. But you must first master your art in order to understand it.
Bruce Lee said it the best "a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick", all you need to know is, how do we counter that with what I know? To many people go from school to school looking for the ultimate secrect to fighting. People need to stop that none sense and concentrate in what is it that you are learning and master that. If your art is failling you then by all means find one that will give you the answers you are looking for. But the bottom line is that you still must master what you are taught, and mastering doesn't mean I can throw a perfect kick.
My teacher always said this to me " I'm going to teach you a technique, if you master it it's yours, if you don't then it's still mine", what he meant by that was when I can execute a counter attack technique without thinking about it, then I had master it.
We all have wonderful and effective arts, so it's not the art that is failing us, but us failing the art. Hope this helps and I hope I didn't offend anyone.
Peace
Mantismaster
