Stages of development

[tellner]

Maybe this belongs in General Martial Arts. What the hey. If it's a Silat student's perspective it's a Silat thing :wink1: Besides, the SE Asian forum has been a little sparse lately.

One of the things that my teacher said a while back has stuck. And it's a useful way of looking at other martial artists. He said that a person's development could be divided into five rough stages.

First, there's the beginner. He has no form. He doesn't know anything. If he can fight it's because of what he had before.

Next, there's the guy who's been at it a while. He is beginning to show form. He can't fight, but he thinks he can and can get hurt.

Next there's the person who has put in the time and effort. He has form. He's internalized the system. He has and shows intention. He can fight, and people who look at him will recognize that he's a practitioner of the style.

A few people go further. The form starts to get simpler and sparer. Eventually it pretty much disappears altogether. They don't have any form any more, just good movement. They can fight. They still show intention. At this point there's a good chance that their teaching window will close if they aren't careful. It can be difficult to relate to people who are at a lower level.

At the highest levels form is gone. Intention is gone. People at this level just do whatever is appropriate. They passed the exit for "unconscious competence" a few miles back and are heading into territory that most of us will never see. They start getting called "Pendekar" or "Shaykh" or *shudder* "Master".

For all the titles out there - Master, Grandmaster, Tuhon, Pendekar, Maha Guru - people at the two higher levels are extremely rare. If you want to see someone operating at the highest level check out the DVDs where a real 10th dan, the incomparable Kyuzo Mifune, goes through the Judo syllabus. There probably aren't a dozen people on MT who are able to really grasp everything that's going on there. And I know I'm not one of them. I've only met a few. It's been interesting over the past fourteen or fifteen years to see my own teacher, Guru Plinck, go from a rock solid third level into the fourth.

 

[Trent]

Interesting, that is essentially what I was told by my baguazhang teacher almost two decades ago. I do believe it has much merit and can't think of any part of it that can be intelligently disagreed with in principle.

I also have to concur with Mifune. That man was absolutely amazing. (I don't use either of those terms loosely at all.) There is a period of time/saying in Judo, "This was before Mifune, and this was after Mifune." His presence and practice actually redefined an entire art forever after. That is a legend.

In person, of the legions of martial artists I've met over the years, and well over a hundred "Masters" there are certainly very few-- much fewer than is self-proclaimed or recognized by others. Suffice to say, I'm not impressed by much anymore. While I've never met Guru Plinck in person, from what I've seen via video and heard via others I respect in the arts, I'd certainly place him in that camp.

I'd also have to place Bapak Willem "Uncle Bill" de Thouars far up the scale of development. Guru Steve Gartin is also one of the most impressive martial practitioners I've come across. Guru Chas Clements has shown me much, and is an overlooked gem in the silat world with decades of practice and training in silat.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Not Indochinese martial arts but I believe my Taiji sifu is at a very high if not the highest level and the last push hands session we had kind of proved that to me. This is why I was so upset a year ago when he decided to change to Taiji light to gain students, luckily he is back to teaching Taiji. And he never refers to himself as master or any other title.