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Thread: Why in Detail

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    Default Why in Detail

    Why in Detail is Lineage, Ranking, Certification, so important? Are these just mere tokens in same cases, exchanged for payment or favors. Although, well deserved, is this the only way to state a good teacher or the person who is best suited to guide you?
    Richard Scardina

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    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Scardina View Post
    Why in Detail is Lineage, Ranking, Certification, so important? Are these just mere tokens in same cases, exchanged for payment or favors. Although, well deserved, is this the only way to state a good teacher or the person who is best suited to guide you?
    Why in detail? How much detail do you want?

    Lineage is important if you are concerned with lineage.
    Ranking is important if you are concerned with ranking.
    Certification is important if you are concerned with certification.

    All of them are important if you recognize the lineage, rank and certification bodies as being legitimate and truthful/capable of giving those histories and qualifications.

    In other words, it comes down to your decision on who you listen to and who you believe and which organization you wish to trust.

    Which means that it comes down to you to decide.

    Something you can do by looking at the teacher directly, rather than through a filter of lineage and ranking.

    If you seek the answer in lineage and ranking (or by asking folks online) you are delegating the task of decision to someone else, yet that delegation is itself a decision on your part.

    Ultimately, it's up to you to decide whether or not your teacher or potential teacher is suitable for you. And then, as someone is sure to point out, it's up to that teacher to decide about you.

    Kim.

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    So, it is like chooing a car. Choose one based upon data, car fax, or peer pressure.
    Richard Scardina

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    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Scardina View Post
    So, it is like chooing a car. Choose one based upon data, car fax, or peer pressure.
    It's like choosing anything, you can't delegate the choice of which ice cream to eat this afternoon without making the decision to delegate the choice. "Surprise me" is still a decision.

    Similarly, choosing an ice cream on tradition (our vanilla is from a recipe handed down from our founder's great grandmother), rank (our #1 seller), or certification (the Wollsey Wanderer named our cherry ice cream the best in the county) is no guarantee that you will like it.

    The newest, the sweetest, the fiercest, the... lots of choices, lots of criteria to choose sensei, cars or ice cream, including peer pressure. After all, if your buddies are in a martial arts class and they like it, that's going to be a good reason for you to try it out, regardless of lineage, rank or certification of the teacher.

    Kim.

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    If ice cream is a popular treat by the mass public, martial arts is a far cry from it.

    In today's world, society has a obsession with certification.

    I would think, that anyone in martial arts, would try to be the best, not only in the art they study, but for themselves.

    However, at more times, this is not enough.
    Richard Scardina

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    In today's world, society has a obsession with certification.
    Not necessarily certification, but with proof. The problem is that there is so much readily available information, much of it at odds with itself, that many people are very unsure just what to believe. The same is all too true in the martial arts. Certification can be had from dozens of organizations for a name and a fee. Martial Arts halls of fame are a dime a dozen, and I can send in my name and any "rank" I choose to a number of different places on-line and receive a "teaching" certificate. None of this means I can or should be teaching anybody anything. However, if I have a high ranking and certification in a particular Japanese art from a well known Japanese organization with known high standards, then that goes a long way toward providing "proof" that I have some idea what I may be talking about.

    Ironically enough, it's this desire for proof that has resulted in the plethora of martial arts organizations and "sokeship" councils that are more than willing to take people's money to provide bogus certification. In the end though, we are only really practicing the martial arts for ourselves, and it's whether or not we enjoy the training that's the ultimate "proof".
    Paul Smith
    "Always keep the sharp side and the pointy end between you and your opponent"

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    Quote Originally Posted by pgsmith View Post
    Not necessarily certification, but with proof. The problem is that there is so much readily available information, much of it at odds with itself, that many people are very unsure just what to believe. The same is all too true in the martial arts. Certification can be had from dozens of organizations for a name and a fee. Martial Arts halls of fame are a dime a dozen, and I can send in my name and any "rank" I choose to a number of different places on-line and receive a "teaching" certificate. None of this means I can or should be teaching anybody anything. However, if I have a high ranking and certification in a particular Japanese art from a well known Japanese organization with known high standards, then that goes a long way toward providing "proof" that I have some idea what I may be talking about.

    Ironically enough, it's this desire for proof that has resulted in the plethora of martial arts organizations and "sokeship" councils that are more than willing to take people's money to provide bogus certification. In the end though, we are only really practicing the martial arts for ourselves, and it's whether or not we enjoy the training that's the ultimate "proof".
    You missed about the honorary exchanges

    I give you one in my org, you give me one from your org.
    Richard Scardina

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    Richard

    You're getting some excellent information above from Kim Taylor and PGSmith

    My deeply devauled 2 cents.

    Not sure that I would use the term "obsession." There are a huge number of fakes, frauds, con-men etc out there. And having detailed information can go along way towards making a good choice.
    Not going to replace taking the time to check things out yourself---but it certainly seldom hurts.

    We are living in a world where people advertise places you can get background checks done on just about anybody for a small fee on T.V.
    I think it's prudent to get as much info as you can on people/art that you will be spending a tremendous amount of time and effort learning.

    That information might...MIGHT....go a long way in helping you make an informed choice.

    Is that the "best" way......maybe, maybe not......but I don't think it hurts.
    Chris Thomas

    "While people are entitled to their illusions, they are not entitled to a limitless enjoyment of them and they are not entitled to impose them upon others."

    "Team Cynicism" MVP 2005-2006
    Currently on "Injured/Reserve" list due to a scathing Sarcasm pile-up.

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    Actually, it isnt a matter for me to figure out what to do. This is a simple discussion based upon interaction-not direction.

    I am enjoying the responses.
    Richard Scardina

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    Whether your teacher needs a long lineage behind his art is a decision entirely up to you. But one thing is certain: if your teacher claims a long lineage, he should be able to back that up in some way. I've seen many, many teachers on this forum and in real life who claimed elaborate lineages going back centuries and who turned out to be total frauds. Some of them were martial arts jokes, incapable of fighting their way out of the proverbial wet paper bag. Some of them were actually decent fighters with something to teach. But all of them lied.

    No matter how good an instructor is, if he feels that he has to lie about his own training then that raises certain questions. On a basic level, how can you trust a man to safely teach you potentially dangerous techniques if he can't tell the truth about his own training? On a broader level, our teachers make a huge impact on our lives, even when we don't realize it. In Old School, Ellis Amdur recounts a conversation with Hung I Hsiang. "Be careful with whom you choose to study," Hsiang told him. "You will become who they are, and if you haven't chosen wisely, you'll suffer and other people will, too." Anyone that you spend as much time learning from as you will with a martial arts instructor is going to have a significant influence on your life-- I've seen this in my own life and in the lives of others. If your chosen teacher is a person who builds his life on deceit and if your whole interaction with him is based around a fraud, that can't have a positive impact on your life.
    David Sims

    "Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum." - Terry Pratchet

    My opinion is, in all likelihood, worth exactly what you are paying for it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by DDATFUS View Post
    ... if your teacher claims a long lineage, he should be able to back that up in some way.
    ...
    It suddenly occurs to me that even though I have a lineage that goes back to before 1600 (according to the records) I have trained with the last two generations and that's it. I have not trained with all those teachers back to 1600 so what's the point of claiming them as progenitors?

    Really, we train with the last guy in the line, not the first, so lineage or not, our training depends on the abilities of the last guy in line.

    Kim.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kim Taylor View Post
    Really, we train with the last guy in the line, not the first, so lineage or not, our training depends on the abilities of the last guy in line.
    Kim.

    But that guy trained with a previous "last guy" where he had to train with the ability of "that" last guy in line.

    And so on.
    Richard Scardina

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kim Taylor View Post
    Really, we train with the last guy in the line, not the first, so lineage or not, our training depends on the abilities of the last guy in line.
    I agree in large part with your point, but I think that the issue can be a bit more complicated. I've seen at least one case where an apparently mediocre instructor whose ryu seemed to have become the type of "living fossil" or "museum piece budo" that koryu exponents try to avoid went on to produce students whose budo was a breathing, active, vital thing. I think that in a ryu that has stood the test of centuries, the lessons are coded in such a way that a student with the right dedication, the right talent, and the right experience can tap into something. Don't get me wrong; the teacher that you train with is enormously important, and I don't think that an ancient lineage automatically trumps a good instructor. But I also think that a school that has managed to survive four or five centuries of both brutal combat and the apathy of peacetime must have something going for it. Even if you've only trained with the last two generations of your four-century-old tradition, you are still standing on top of the lessons that those previous generations learned through blood paid on the battlefield.

    Anyway, I'll stand by my earlier point: I don't care if a guy has a lineage dating back to Minamoto no Yoshitsune or if he made it all up on his own. Each teacher stands and falls on his own abilities. But I've never seen anything good come out of a teacher who is dishonest about his training.
    David Sims

    "Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum." - Terry Pratchet

    My opinion is, in all likelihood, worth exactly what you are paying for it.

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    Therefore, lineage doesn't matter?
    Richard Scardina

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    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Scardina View Post
    Therefore, lineage doesn't matter?
    Depends on the question. If you want detailed answers, it helps to ask detailed questions.
    Josh Reyer

    Swa sceal man don, žonne he ęt guše gengan ženceš longsumne lof, na ymb his lif cearaš. - The Beowulf Poet

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