Is it disrespectful for having one or more senseis?

[Pacificshore]

Just because you want to train in another style doesn't mean your loyalties should change from your current dojo. Why any instructor would be offended is beyond me

[Ben Martin]

When i asked my sensei about me doing thai boxing he was cool with it. what he says he doesn't like is when students do another martial art but dont ask him first they just tell him after and say how they have graded and stuff he finds that disrespectful.

[cross]

what he says he doesn't like is when students do another martial art but dont ask him first they just tell him after and say how they have graded and stuff he finds that disrespectful.

This is very true. I think another problem your instructor might have is if you are being shown a technique and you say "nah that wont work, at the other place where i learn they tell us to do it this way".

[Muaythaiboxer]

i cross train alot and sometimes i hear contradicting theorys on a technique, i just try to use what i think works.

[Ben Martin]

what he says he doesn't like is when students do another martial art but dont ask him first they just tell him after and say how they have graded and stuff he finds that disrespectful.

This is very true. I think another problem your instructor might have is if you are being shown a technique and you say "nah that wont work, at the other place where i learn they tell us to do it this way".

ha yeah i can imagen the look on his face if i dared to say that.

[italian_guy]

What I do outside the dojo is my own business. If I want to do (like I'm actually doing) more then one art and I have time/money to do them is still my own business. However as a sign of respect for all my instructors I refrain from any comment concerning comparisons... unless I'm explicitly asked (my karate instructors know I'm cross-training in Tai chi).

[Chaz]

As Bruce said once, Traditions most common product is holding you back. I'd say your master would probably understand...If not, whats in YOUR best interest as a person?

[Apobiosis]

The problem with some schools today is that they are concerned with making money - some dojos are businesses too. This is where some instructors can get irritated - if you are cross training or checking out another style, there runs the risk that you will join that style and stop providing money to your current school.

Cross-training is encouraged in my current school back home, and I encourage those that I instruct to cross-train if they desire to. There is nothing wrong with learning another style and picking up bits and pieces of the best they have to offer to apply to your own forms and sparring.

This was not always the case; when I was younger, it was severely frowned upon to visit another school, even attend another school's tournaments. Look at the entire picture and determine what is best for you. Like it was said earlier, it's your life.

[Sandan]

It does depend on the levels of training of both arts. I'm all for getting as much as possible by way of information, however if one starts to cloud the other then you certainly will have issues. Your instructor may also find himself having to correct techniques you have picked up from the other art...

my advice, prioritise, make one your key MA and the other should be a subsidy...

[JusticeZero]

I'd rather not have Bruce brought into this, since from all i've seen and read, he was a prodigy who discovered for himself over the course of 20 years a list of principles.. However, any of his teachers could have told him the whole list had he not been acting like the worst student in the world and bailing out of their classes once he'd picked up a distorted and superficial understanding of a handful of things in their art.

If you can go to another teacher and learn things that enrich your core practice in ways that do not interfere with your core of movement, I am all for it. If you're going to flake out and go picking techniques up that damage your core then you're going to rapidly find your instructor displeased by the idea of cross-training, and might even find yourself removed from the class.

These sorts of things might include, to name a few:

-Snippets of footwork from the other art overriding your stances so that loads of extra time must be spent correcting you to not move like the other art

-Power generation disrupted by 'well in the other class we do it THIS way..'

-Inheriting arrogant and not necessarily supported 'well, we'd just do thisandthisandthis and demolish you' ideas from the other class (such as shooting for takedowns when the instructor is trying to demonstrate controlled speed techniques slow enough so you can learn how it goes)