Testing wisdom

I've been doing Martial Arts(MA) since 1978. Through time I've meet a lot of people  students, friends, teachers, coaches and MA people who are not any of these. But all of them have influenced me, and in a sense made me what I'm today.

Some of them were self centered others willing to share and give with out thought. Some the toughest I've ever fighted, and others so soft you barely could look at them with out them creeping over to a corner.

But it's easy to pick out the extremes, much more harder is picking out were the small stuff that doesn't your training. To see the teacher that uses terror to keep his pupils in line is easy, but the teacher that keeps students by "You just have to do this 1000 times, and you'll understand" is harder.

Experience through repetition is important, but being able to tell a person upfront what is expected as a result. Otherwise the student doesn't really know if he's working in the right direction. Worst case were the teacher keeps teaching without talking , the student might learn to do the technique the correct way, but understanding it completely differently. So when the student one day becomes a master and starts to apply his "wisdom", the application of it may be catastrophically, in worse case sending his students to get maimed or killed in a violent confrontation. A way of always ensuring your understanding and application of what you've learn is to test it. The test could be competition fighting or trying the technique/concept in real life.

Understanding how to test techniques or concepts become important when training with teachers or coaches.
Test can vary from just understanding body movement over to trying the technique in a scenario, over to hearing the teachers/coaches reason of why things are done as they are.

Your experience and who and what you are really will define your own tests.  This also shows how important it is to know yourself; on a mental and physical level. Your technique will look differently throwing a person that is lower than you, then the other way around. If a teacher can't get you to handle the difference, there is a great chance that they really can't help you at all.

There is a catch to being critical to what your learning, and that is your entering an era which you haven't got any experience, and it can be difficult to evaluate the value of it upfront. So sometimes you just have to throw yourself into it, and take a chance and see what the results are. Depending on how much time your using mini test /evaluations can be made along the line.

Starting MA back in 1978 had me doing alot of kata's, countless repetitions, religious influence, mediation, far eastern mystic, totally submission to teacher - never questioning, eating the "right food"," thinking" the correct thoughts and so on. Some of the things I wouldn't let my students do today, either because it's totally wrong or just the "learning" takes to long compared to the time it takes to "learn" it. While others I will push them through, but I will tell them why I do it. giving them the fundamentals to understand, and be able to "test" if what they are doing works.

This is really letting students learn how to learn through "testing", and not just doing techniques.