Teaching

"Don't worry about teaching;
you don't need to be teachers.”

It has long been assumed by many that becoming a teacher of the martial arts is an inevitable phase in a budo "career." Some people think that because a person achieves a certain rank, they must begin instructing others. Others feel that teaching budo is the only way to understand it.

"I can't teach you this.
You have to do it on your own."

Teaching requires a syllabus of sorts, even if only an unconscious one. And many teachers, working from such a syllabus, have a need to believe in its authority and through this, their own authority. It is a very easy matter for a student to also believe in that authority. This is a dangerous thing. Budo is a kind of “non-knowledge." The less you know of it, the more likely you will understand it and you will come to realize the impossibility of teaching something that can only be learnt.

Budo is change. It is replete with contradictions and paradox. Its blueprint is life and death but those martial artists who fall into the trap of developing the authority and prestige of being a teacher are failing to follow one of the natural rules of budo that is to not show what you know. Blueprints, curriculums, syllabi; these all work to eliminate change, to solve contradiction and to remove chance from the picture. But this is impossible. A martial artist who "teaches" has already stopped learning, no matter how skilled, talented, or charismatic.

"Never be a teacher. When you are a teacher,
your budo dies. Always be a student and never
think you are good.”

Anyone can teach you how to replicate a physical form. Punching, kicking, rolling—these are all simple enough acts that anyone can teach and anyone can learn, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, budo is infinitely larger than this. If you can only teach what is visible, then you are only teaching a tiny, tiny portion of budo.

If you can only teach a tiny portion of budo, you may be tempted to believe that what you are teaching is the totality.

You might also be tempted to believe that the part of budo you can't teach is only achievable by “mastering" the parts of budo that you can teach.

This is not meant as a criticism of all teachers of the martial arts, but it is important to encourage a different understanding of what being a martial artist can mean.

It is very difficult for people to relinquish positions and feelings of authority. Stating humbly that one does not understand is not the same as actually believing it. It is in this way that teaching can be a very dangerous trap.

"I am not teaching you so that you can teach.”

Budo is a solitary pursuit. It is a man-to-man training. There could be a thousand people in the training hall but if you are truly listening to the master, you are his only student—even if the other 999 people in that training hall are truly listening. Real budo training only needs one student. With that in mind, the idea of teaching in budo clearly becomes anathema to real learning.

A person training may influence others and may even attract others towards him. At this stage, a real teacher would simply continue on, irrespective of who passes through his orbit. Many gravitate towards the limelight and, in doing so, suffocate the life of their learning. A real teacher must let go of being a teacher. To the casual observer, there is little indication of who is who. Above all, a teacher needs to be able to hide.

How many pupils did Michelangelo have? What about Monet or Van Gogh? It is clear then that art cannot be taught. For sure, there may be some rudimentary physical actions involved but the spirit of art cannot be taught. It can only be nurtured by not interfering with it. A teacher who makes a student conform is creating unnecessary obstacles (no matter how well intentioned). More than destroying their students' chances at learning, they are in fact, destroying their own chances.

"Teaching is a heavy responsibility,
so don't teach. You'll feel more relaxed.”

Gloden Silence

With sound,
Words lose all
Their meaning.

Three men are sitting around a table. There is a glass of water. One man says, "The glass is half empty!" The second man says, "The glass is half full!" The third man reaches over, drinks the glass and then gets up and leaves.

The Gloden Hush

Silence is golden
And honest smiles move,
But who has the heart to hear
What is not being said?

A tortoise had taken up jogging. One day, a hungry wolf attacked it. Too lazy to break through the tortoise's shell, the wolf went off in search of easier prey. Buoyed by this, the tortoise thought to itself, “Can you imagine that? Who would've thought that jogging could come in so handy? Why, even a wolf is no match for me!”

Is This All?

Just words,
And nothing else.

“There are some people that if they don't know,
you can't tell them."—Louis Armstrong

Invisibility

Not much, but then,
That is the splendor
Of the teacher's art.

Isn't it interesting that one of history's most famous teachers left nothing he taught in writing? Socrates would have been proud.

Modern education has a feel good sense about its methods. Students must always be satisfied. Have you ever seen cheetah cubs experimenting with a baby gazelle? Sometimes the gazelle survives.