Loyalty to your teacher?

[HapkidoDragon]

One of the things I have learned in martial arts is to value loyalty and honor.

I have a question. Everyone here has been under a teacher/sensei/master for their martial art career.

Let's say that your instructor (which you received your black belt under) formerly was with the (insert organization name here) and something happened that caused him to break affiiiation with that organization. Would you stay with the person that instructed you or would you stay with the old organization?

For clarification purposes I'll use fictional names and characters. Let's say that I trained under Sensei Rick and he is the only Karate instructor I have ever trained with. I have my own school. He was part of Karate King Federation. He broke off from that organization.

Would you stay with the organization and kiss of Sensei Rick or kiss off the organization and stay affiliated with your instructor?

[Sohan]

Easy one. My loyalties are to my sensei. I trust him for many reasons, but a big one is that he is not afraid to allow us to question things. He knows his craft well and approaches karate with dedication and integrity. No question where my loyalties would lie.

With respect,

Sohan

[ps1]

In general, I would stay with my instructor. Of course it depends on why he/ she splintered away from the orginization.

I've seen people kick out of orginizations for various dishonorable reasons. If this were the case I would probably not stay with him then.

However, if it was for most any other reason (avoid political mumbo jumbo, waste of money, just dosen't like it, ect...) I would stay with my instructor.

[GOM]

Obviously there are a lot of variables, but I would choose my instructor over the organisation. I trust my instructor, and for whatever reason he chose to leave the organisation, I would be next to him supporting his decision.

[Brandon Fisher]

Instructor for sure.

[Holland]

The leadership of the last organization I was with (the USIKA) got together and voted to remove me from the group. (Nice buncha guys) Anyhow, my instructor really stood next to me during this.

Even before hand my loyalties were with my sensei, but now it is even much more so.

[Kieran-Lilith]

I'd always pick Sensei. I'd rather have the one who taught me than the orginization that he felt the need to break away from. After all, if he's choosing to break away, then something obviously happened, and I trust his judgement.

[bushido_man96]

I would go with my instructor. In fact, my current instructor, for reasons I will not name, had flirted with the idea of breaking away from our current organization. However, he is on good terms with the Grand Master, and they talked and made some changes to hopefully better the organization.

[Fairfax_Uechi]

I would say that my loyalty is to myself and to my family and friends. Now Uechi has several different groups that have broken off and come back, and broken off and come back. etc. We're sort of like a big family. So in my case, I try and stay out of it and be friendly with everyone if that makes any sense. I really despise politics and always try and learn from everyone.

[CheekyMusician]

I'd probably stay with my Sensei, but it would also depend what new association he was going to etc.

In fact, something like this happened to me. My Sensei broke away from the association he was with and as far as I know he and some other instructors started up their own organisation, but I didn't really want to sit belt tests with a small, independant organisation so joined another club and sit my belt tests with the JKA now, but still train at the original club, too.

I was never too fussed about the original association that that Sensei was with, so I would never have jumped ship to another club in the same association when he left it.

However, I do really like the JKA as an association, or what I've seen of it so far, at least, so if my JKA Sensei was leaving the JKA, I would probably stick with the association. If possible, I'd still try training with that Sensei, though, but also find another JKA club to train at and sit my belts with.