What's The Difference?

I was having an interesting discussion last night with a fellow martial artist about the differences between Martial Arts Schools. His point was that, no matter what the particular art is, be it kung fu or karate or MMA, that the important thing is that you are LEARNING. Learning something, anything.

On one hand, I agree. I definitely think "any martial art" is better than "no martial art".

At another level, I look at it in a more selfish way. If I were taking the class, I would want the best teacher possible. My time is valuable and I don't want to spend a lot of it "not learning" in all the ways that bad teachers are capable of providing.

We've all had teachers who don't even know our names, who are more concerned with sounding "professional" than finding out what a student needs. We've all had teachers where the curriculum, the lesson at hand, was more important than the student.

We've all had teachers who were so wrapped up in themselves and the sound of their own voice that they never bothered to listen to ours.

Unfortunately, the model for most traditional karate schools is one where you don't ask questions, you don't imply that you didn't understand the teacher. The teacher is perfect, the teacher knows all - and it is disrespectful to even question him.

I think that's where we're a lot different than most schools. We know the students' names. We try and find out their goals. We encourage their questions.

Yes, this means that we get the occasional student who wants to derail the education process with inane questions, but we've found that most of our students are truly interested in learning more and performing at the best of their abilities.

Yes, questioning our "supreme authority" by having the audacity to question our knowledge is a little non-traditional - but we like it.

The best teachers always have a thirst for greater knowledge and it's amazing how our students can come up with different ways of looking at things, different paths to the same goal.

Keep those questions coming. This is the best school around... but only because we're always getting better.