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26Jan/096

Effective Teacher/Sifu/Sensei

Everyone tends to question whether certain Martial Arts are truly effective or not, but the biggest problem isn’t whether the Martial Art is effective or not. It is whether the Sensei, who will be teaching you, is effective or not. I’m simply going to use the word Sensei as the representation for teacher, Sifu, etc for the rest of this article.

It’s one of those things where it doesn’t matter if someone has or hasn’t told you about them, you simply know that they are a great and effective teacher. They may teach the same content as everyone else, but the way they teach it, the methods they choose to use to demonstrate things, etc all add to together in unison and it no longer matters what anyone else says about that person because you now have your own well opinionated outlook on that person and their teaching methods. It’s a wonderful thing when it happens. Too bad it doesn’t happen more often. However, I got lucky, and over this past weekend I got to have this experience again. I’m not going to mention a name, because I don’t know that persons views on having it listed, so I’ll stray away from that since it really shouldn’t matter anyway. All I will say is that the Sensei is a woman.

The class began like normal, with around 10-15 people having attended, where we would stretch our muscles and ligaments as to not injure them later on. But as class further progressed, I noticed when practicing various things, that she made the class feel quite at ease, at least for me. I no longer cared what the others were doing next to me, because I was fixed on doing the things she said to the best of my ability. I’ll admit, Aikido is a big change for me, so I’m definitely a beginner all over again in a lot of areas and to be honest, I love it.

Later on, we were divided into basically two groups: the more advanced and the newcomers. The class was a beginner class but many higher ranked students attend to work on the fundamentals( and have fun ). When we got to the point where we were working in pairs, attempting to perform the technique she had just showed us, Sensei would come around and correct us. It wasn’t the fact that Sensei corrected us, it was the way she did it. Sensei made it very easy to understand and break down each movement into pieces. At one point, Sensei was demonstrating the move on me for my practice partner(nage) to see how he should put me(uke) down in a pin. The flow of her movements took me down effortlessly(on her part of course ). When Sensei got me into the pin, she was able to demonstrate the slight difference of not having your knees close enough to the uke’s shoulders and the result of that difference AKA me auto-flinching in response to the sudden torque generated. I may not have much Aikido experience, but I’ve had enough Martial Arts background training to notice when someone is effortlessly performing techniques.

Obviously, you can’t really describe all that well how, what, and why that Sensei is so great at teaching, because you just have to be there to experience it for yourself. But, for those who have had the chance to train with people that make you feel like this, you’ll understand what I mean. It’s not what they teach, it’s how they teach it.

Tagged as: Aikido, effective, sensei, sifu, teacher, Technique 6 Comments

12Jan/091

What is Qi?

Just recently Steven Smith(author of Real Taji) wrote some splendid articles about Qi. Currently he’s only put out the first part of a three part series, but he also threw up another article semi-related about Qi. The depth of understanding that Steven Smith has can be seen in his writings. Here are the links to both of his current articles:

This is one of my favorite quotes from Steven Smith:

We believe ourselves into dark corners when we cling to words and explanations. Avoid that. Breathing Earth Energy into the body…that feeling can be explained in many ways, and the tighter you cling to the explanation, the further off the experience remains. Try it again.

My belief in Qi has been standing stable for quite sometime now, but my understanding of it has never ceased continuing to expand. But just because I believe in Qi, doesn’t mean I believe everything everyone says they can do with Qi. For instance, I also believe in Sledge Hammers. If you tell me I can destroy my computer with a Sledge Hammer, I’d say you’re right. However, if you tell me I’m able to program a microchip with it, I’m going to be pretty keen in not believing you. All that doesn’t have any effect on the fact that I still believe in Sledge Hammers.

Tagged as: belief, chi, fa jing, qi, Qigong, taji 1 Comment

15Oct/080

One Style to Rule Them All

In today’s day and age, there is a lot of stress placed on which Martial Art style is the best. I find this astounding, that so many people can be caught up in themselves and wishing one single style to be better then all others.

There are many people who claim that the old Shaolin styles are the greatest, mainly because of the fact that they are the foundation from which all others build off of. I do not dispute that Shaolin is pretty much where so many styles originated from, but you have to acknowledge it for what it is. For instance, a true Shaolin Martial Artist could pretty much trump a good majority of the others out there. There is one reason for this, and it’s probably not the reason you are thinking. It’s because he isn’t limited. You may be thinking “Limited?”, and I assure you, that is exactly what I mean.

How many Martial Art schools exist today? Far too many to want to count. How many of them offer a variety of training? Not very many. The fact is that most people who study Martial Arts are close minded to the fact that the Martial Art they study is in fact not capable of simply defeating all other styles. People tend to believe that when they become a high rank, or rather “experienced”, in the style they are currently studying, that they are going to be unstoppable and able to go up against all kinds of other styles with ease. This just isn’t so. Granted, some styles are more versatile in the fact that they can handle a wider range of attack forms, but even then they are limited.

To get a full understanding, I’d like to present to everyone the word: wu shu. Yes, I know most of you out there have seen it and know the meaning behind it, but have you truly thought about it rather then just know it’s meaning? Here is what www.dictionary.com had to say:

[Chinese (Mandarin) wǔ shù : wǔ, martial + shù, skill, art.]

As you can see, it’s pretty simple to understand. The point I’m trying to get across is that people should aim for acquiring talent in Martial Arts, or wu shu, not in a style.

Okay, to my point from before about those who study Shaolin not being limited. What I mean is that Shaolin is a collective of Martial Art styles, it’s not really just one style. There are different types of Shaolin styles, and within each there are a variety of other styles. For instance, there are the five animal styles in Shaolin: Crane, Tiger, Snake, Leopard(Panther), Dragon. Shaolin is quite huge and every piece that is broken down is to teach a specific trait. For instance, Crane is for balance while Tiger is for fierceness/power. Shaolin was formed through thorough communication between displays of Martial Arts at temples.

Those who limit themselves to one style end up only degrading their own ability. Those who study Shaolin(or any very close variant based off of Shaolin) have an wider range of training, and because of this they can defeat a larger variety of other styles. This rule applies to those who study Shaolin as well though, if they seek only one specific area and limit themselves, they’re going to inhibit themselves from moving further as well.

This isn’t to say that Shaolin is the ultimate style, it’s to say that those who study as many different styles as they can have the greatest ability to adapt to any given situation. Remember, no one style is the best, only when complete knowledge is sought can success be found.

Tagged as: martial art, shaolin, ultimate, wu shu No Comments

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