Friday, January 19, 2007

Finding a Teacher...

I read Pat's post on his blog about my response to Jory-san the other day. I think Jory-san was just interested in my particular reasons for picking Fugakukai, and for me to clarify what I was typing because it could've been stated better :) Since Pat's put in his two cents about what brings people to different places, I felt I should elaborate on how I got where I am. I didn't just fall into as I said. I'd actually forgotten how many other places of martial arts I'd looked at until I ended up where I am. As Andy can attest to, I tried Seibukan, a form of Okinawan Karate, for a brief time. Although Sensei Bill-Jack was an outstanding teacher, the art itself didn't "feel" right for me. I didn't "ride the waves", I wanted "THE WAVE". Me and Andy (who I enlisted in my quest for the metaphorical wave) once drove 4 hours to an Aikido dojo to look at it. They taught Aikido, which I wanted to learn, Iaido which he wanted to learn, and the dues were relatively cheap...which we both thought was a plus. I asked the teacher how sparring worked in Aikido (knowing it was a loaded question because I was wondering how he'd react), he sternly looked at me and said there was no sparring but delivered it in such a way that he was almost admonishing me for asking a question that a student who'd never seen Aikido before would ask, so I left. Before my tangent continues, the point I'm getting to is to make sure that anyone reading this doesn't just go to a dojo and stick with something that doesn't click with them until something better comes along, sometimes you have to go out and find it. I looked for a while until my friend from high school told me he knew someone that took it. So in a way I did fall into Fugakukai because I didn't seek out Bryce to point the way to Pat so I could learn...but I wasn't aimlessly going from place to place either. You'll know when you find a good teacher and when you meet the martial art that's for you. That being said, a lot of places are getting more and more commercialized so make sure the aim is in teaching you a martial art, not selling a bunch of t-shirts and trophies. Find out the style of a school and research the history of it and make sure the person teaching you knows a little about it...you'd be surprised at the results sometimes.

3 comments:

The Nerd-storian! said...

I posted it on my fractured retelling of where and what i've learned martial art wise, but i thought i'd brin it up here to reminisce. Do you remember us taking Shotokan?

John Wood said...

I DO remember that, from Johnathan Taylor's dad. We met up at an indoor tennis court I believe and he showed us some Shotokan/combat karate as he called it. Fun stuff...fun stuff. We were going to take Shotokan origionally cause that's what Ken and Ryu from the Street Fighter II saga took.

John Wood said...

As a quick update thinking about it now...Aikido is still the martial art for me. It still fits and just feels like my wave.