Hero Worship

[Sam]

Ok yes on that count i agree - however, living in awe - does not mean you accept anything they say os it is not worship.... 57 battle decorations as a sniper is absolutely astounding, but if i was confused about whether i technique was effective i would still ask and not their word as gospel.... os in that respect hero worship should be avoided, there is nothing wrong with the slightly taller tales either... if anything they above most people have a right ot do so [and im not suggesting you said there was anything wrong with it either].

[jarrettmeyer]

1. Knowledge: recall and duplicate. Ability to do a technique.

2. Comprehension: classify, identify, and explain. Ability to explain how to do a technique.

3. Application: demonstrate and interpret. How to use the technique on an opponent.

4. Analysis: experiment and test. Why does the technique work? When doesn't the technique work?

5. Synthesis: creation.

6. Evaluation: appraise and judge

...

what an interesting post, could you give me anymore info about it?

In the 1950's a psychologist named Benjamin Bloom broke down the levels of learning into the above 6 levels. The first three levels are concrete. They require no independent thought by the student, and they can be learned by study and practice. The most basic level is knowledge: the ability to recall facts (rote memorization). In MA, I would equate this to all the students standing in line and doing punches. You can teach beginning at comprehension, because that means that you can explain how to do a technique. (It would be pretty poor teaching, but you could do it.) Finally, application shows you know how to use the technique.

The last three levels are abstract. Here, the learn breaks down (analysis), rebuilds (synthesis), and eventually evaluates. I don't think that creation is a completely new style, but more along the lines of what Sam said: creation of new application. Shorin Ryuu once wrote a post on kata/bunkai that made sense to this topic. The more you break down a kata (analysis), the more you fully understand it's bunkai (synthesis).

Finally, there is evaluation. Sam is correct, this is an expert level. As earlier stated, I still don't know what that means in MA, yet.

[Conqueror]

As a student in Sensei Perry's dojo, maybe I can offer a bit of context.

Much of the "hero worship" that a visitor to our dojo may experience is likely a mudansha (underbelt) phenomenon. I see this even more frequently at our annual Camp in the summers. I believe it to be caused by a lack of understanding. Perry Sensei's karate is certainly outstanding - you don't reach 8th dan by being a slouch. When watching him do bunkai, many less-experienced karateka are awed by his techniques because they don't fully understand the concepts behind the techniques and can't yet mentally link the bunkai to the kata.

Our yudansha class asks him a great many questions and I've only observed a couple of people that were genuinely unwilling to question him. I would also say that members of our dojo tend to worship him less than outsiders, because (unfortunately) we tend to take him for granted. Most karateka are lucky to have a kyoshi within a hundred miles of their dojo; we have two at our dojo (Sensei Perry and Chris Estes) and another 15 minutes away (Kevin Roberts). Students here tend not to realize what a great privilege it is to train with such martial artists and so I've experienced much greater "worship" of sensei Perry when we travel than when we're at home.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Yeah...I got the same impression when I visited there last summer. I noticed how...what's the word...desensitized...many of the students were by having Kyoshi Perry, Estes and Roberts so close to one another. I commented to Skeptic2004 when we were there how some students probably didn't realize how fortunate they were.

All in all, I think Skeptic2004 is merely pointing out a prevalent trend in the martial arts. All too often people are held on some pedestal of perfection and spoken of in breathless, awe-struck tones. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that the majority of those could hand my you-know-what to me on a plate, but I digress...

I think in some cases people tend to ask less questions because it will end up causing a hurtin' after being demonstrated on. I tend to ask because I like feeling the technique rather than just observing. Needless to say, I get thrown around a bit at times.

The other reason is if they are around all the time, the sense of "urgency" isn't necessarily there, as you can ask them questions at your leisure.

Lastly, a great deal of my respect for Kyoshi Perry comes not from his excellent martial arts and military career, but just the generosity and down-to-earth goodness he showed to me and Skeptic2004 when we visited his place last year.

[Conqueror]

Agreed, wholeheartedly. It's his manner which has won him the most popularity on a local basis - he's well-known throughout the community just as a wonderful person.

And it strikes me that, no matter how much we say we know we're lucky, those of us that have trained with him since the beginning really can't understand. "Desensitized" is the perfect word, I think.

[Conqueror]

Addendum: upon reflection I think one almost needs high rank in our dojo to appreciate Sensei Perry as a man rather than as a a fountain of karate. It's only since I made nidan (or thereabouts) that I've really started appreciating him outside the dojo - going to his house to help him in his (spectacular) garden, scolding him for not being more careful after his recent surgery, etc. Once one starts appreciating him outside the karate classroom setting, the hero image really starts to melt away and you start to see him for what he is: a really, really good person who just happens to also be good at martial arts.

[Sam]

Yeah you have to remember these are all people - especially when you start out people are willing to accept them as infallible - but your right conqueror once you get to know them as people you know they have just the same problems as everyone else.

[Sauzin]

First of all I would like to compliment grandmasterchen’s post. That post really spelled out what respect means in terms of budo.

Out side of what he said, I would like to add a few opinions. First of all I believe there are really two ways to learn: the hard way and the easy way. The easy way is to remove any kind of expectations or belief in prior knowledge that you have going into an instruction. This allows you to assimilate what is being taught very quickly and more accurately. The hard way is to question everything and compare everything with what you already know. This isn’t always very accurate and it’s never as fast. But you learn it better because you have to work harder for it. Learning things the hard way means you value it more once you do learn it and you have more confidence in it. Generally it is also easier to apply information learned this way because you have already tested it out and have built your own personal theory (the how and why) around its use.

Traditionally in oriental culture they prefer the easy way. And it’s a testament to the success of this method that so many extremely proficient karate-ka have and do exist. Still it does have its failure points and a lot of this can be seen in some of the movements away from street applicability that have been made in some arts. But then you look at some of the more American dojo’s and you see the other side of the coin. People question before they are ready to understand. As a result they don’t get the whole lesson and run around collecting incomplete lessons from different arts until they think they understand or have compiled a “complete” art. Unfortunately what this creates is a large group of people taking the same beginning piece from different styles and trying to make a picture with it. Few people get a coherent picture this way.

I think the best answer lies somewhere in-between. Certainly that’s how I’ve chosen to learn and it’s how I teach. I fear no question and I appreciate critical and well thought out questions that bring different things to the table. However, at some point students have to accept that they aren’t going to understand everything in one class. So a little good faith and a lot of good questions are more my thing.

[Conqueror]

Very wise.

[Skeptic 2004]

Conqueror: did we meet last year? Shorin Ryuu and I passed through Perry's dojo around this time last year (and Shorin Ryuu is heading back again in a few days...I'm unable to join him, but I really do want to go back sometime ). The name from your signature sounds very familiar (i.e., I remember meeting someone named Jason).

Shorin Ryuu pretty much captures my intent perfectly. There's a general trend in the martial arts for instructors to be placed on these pedestals by their students and exulted to such a degree that they become demi-gods in their student's eyes. For example, as much as I loved training bagua, one of the things that turned me off to it was the degree of student reverie for the instructor; he was a great guy and a martial artist, but during practice at times I thought I was in a cult. That and the focus on the whole Taoism thing didn't really catch my fancy...

I do not intend to besmirch Sensei Perry - by all means I have the deepest amount of respect for the man as a human being and a karateka (and I only knew the guy for 7 days...he impressed me that much). During my visit, I observed that the hero worship phenomenon wasn't exclusive to the mudansha class; a minority of yudansha (some guys in the front row at that...) still had that awe, as well deserved as it is, because they understood what Perry was doing and were simply marvelling at how beautifully he was doing it. The enthusiastic evangelism, however, did not come from them but from the mudansha, so I do see your point, Conqueror.

I would just like to kinda steer the conversation towards one of my original questions, which is this: is it necessary for martial arts instructors and "masters" to have this larger-than-life image?

Just an example: In any conversation I've ever had with a Shotokan karateka, Gichin Funakoshi was the best thing since sliced bread. However, when I talk to guys who have been around the block and who have had contact/trained with the old masters post WWII, Funakoshi was a "pretty boy" without "kakedamashii" or "fighting spirit." Not to step on anyone's toes, but based on these conversations and informal research I tend to bend toward the latter observation (actually, I'm sure the truth is somewhere in a shade of grey between the two). However, Funakoshi really did do great things for karate (i.e., spread it). He's a larger-than-life phenom. Why?