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bruceb
26th July 2003, 22:02
Oh how the stories change as to what one is told, and what one must do to become a better martial artist.

Beginners are told not to cross train, and then they catch their teacher or higher ranking students cross-training, and the advice is still not to cross-train .... they aren't ready yet.

Well, as the years go by, one finds that the advice of "not to go outside of one's particular training style" is but a test to see who will look for something more, and who will quit.

Well, we have the Amazing Randi Fanclub of pretenders who criticize everything from their armchairs, and tell people how they hate this or hate that .... just like it was the same kind of test to see if anyone will actually physically go and check out what is in the big wide world against their advice?

I don't need to mention names because they will find this thread and begin again.

No .. I don't want to get into that, again.

How long do you think one should take to assimulate the general terms of another style of martial art after attaining basic skills in a 3-4 year period of their main practiced art?

It seems to me, that a good teacher can educate a good student in 6 months, or less, if that student has a broad knowledge of arts before cross training. From that basic training, in less than two years most people can attain dan ranks, if they are so inclined.

What gets me is .... how the good students need to ignore the advice of the naysayers who just want that someone to break the path through the woods before they, the naysayers, venture out of the nest of the mother art? Go figure.

The more I talk to people who try or experience cross training, the more I find that the general concencus says it is wrong to cross-train and that one style of practice can keep a student occupied for a lifetime. I don't think so.

Maybe it is our modern cheeseburger world where we want not just the cheeseburger but a sample of everything that is to be had. That is to say, once enough people prove they can go through the woods and come back, then others figure it is safe ... it can be done, so they quietly cease their objections and quietly cross train too.

In the last twelve years I have trained in martial arts, all the teachers who told me not to cross train eventually cross trained after I told them of what I was doing checking different styles of martial arts. Kind of makes all their advice "NOT to cross train" a great big lie. If it is not a lie that has been bought into then it must be, at least, an urban myth.

Things to consider in your answers.....

How much brainwashing goes into keeping students in the nest, and how much freedom to cross train is there out there?

What have you done outside of your main style of practice, and what advice did that teacher give you?

My main question is .....

How much has "keep the birds in the nest" changed to "go out and experience the world" in the last 10-30 years of martial arts?

(The space of time to which the question applys will depend on how long you have been alive, and how much you have seen in those years)

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My reply ....

I tend to see a whole lot of changes in keeping open a students options to be allowed to Cross -train, where not too many years ago it was not only bad form, but severly frowned upon to train anywhere outside of one teacher. Most of the teachers I meet today actually encourage students to experience and Cross-train. I think that bodes well for todays martial arts students.

Now ... if I could just get some of those armchair quarter backs to practice and cross train as much as they comment ....

Yojimbo558
27th July 2003, 18:13
Hi Bruce,

The only time I have told students to hold off from mixing styles is when they are new to the system. The reason for this is simply that starting multiple styles at the same time can have a confusing effect on the student.

For example, there was one kid who insisted on it...with no prior experience in martial arts he stated that he had the cash and that it was his decision as to what he did with his money and his time.

He had signed up with different instructors for Jujutsu, Aikido, Arnis and Kung Fu and wanted to start all of these at the same time. While each of these arts has a great deal to offer...and if he had waited until he was more grounded in at least one of these systems he would have seen more of the similarities and different interpretations of concepts...But by doing all of them from scratch he never had a focus. After 6 months the students who had signed up with him had advanced two kyus above him...while he remained at the same beginner status in each of these systems.

After 6 months he was frustrated because he realized that by insisting on doing all of these styles at once, he was only able to spend 1 day per week in each style...where as the students who had started up with him averaged 3 or 4 days per week of one style. The result was he finally understood that it was the confusion of the cooperation of aikido vs the non-cooperation of jujutsu, to the different emphasis of arnis or those in Kung Fu ( here he was learning 2 styles 1 hard & 1 soft ).

Eventually he quit all of these styles. Later, not only did those who had been his peers move on to successfully incorporating other styles into their training...but he had served as a lesson from each of his teachers to their students as to how impatience can undermine and inhibit your own training.

So the point of my thread would be that there has to be a base before the students try to add to it.

Eric L. Bookin