Secrets are a big deal in martial arts circles (”Duhhh!”, you say).

All too often, “secrets” are used as magnets for the easily duped, or to make a practitioner or “master” appear more interesting, knowledgable or mysterious than they actually are. An earlier column of mine (”False Prophet”) details my unfortunate dealings with one such practitioner.

But reconsidering, I hope I can convince you that there is value in a controlled flow of information from teacher to student.

For example, the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt who regularly gives seminars at our kwoon, John Will, is adamant that if he teaches a particular technique to a group, that he will never teach a counter to that technique in the same lesson, and probably not until some time later. To teach the counter too early would discourage the students from trying the technique in freestyle grappling and thus prevent them from learning to apply it effectively - a corollary of which would be that they never learn to counter really well either, since none of their classmates bothered to learn the technique properly!

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If I were a gazillionaire, I’d have a house like Larry Ellison, the Oracle CEO. He built a copy of a Kyoto temple in California for around 37 million, and lives there when he’s not sailing his maxi-yacht or trying to buy a surplus MIG-29 (try putting a pak sao on THAT,sucker!) from what’s left of the Russian military.

But I’d build a mini-Shaolin by the ocean. Somewhere tropical, an island off North or FarNorth Queensland. A hall full of 108 wooden dummies seems a little ostentatious even by Ellison standards, but I would have a large paved courtyard like the Mortal Kombat arena with several of these wooden monstrosities in staggered formation along one side, so the masters I flew in from around the world by private jet and helicopter could demonstrate as my friends and I followed along. Along the opposite side, a row of assorted striking bags and other training paraphenalia would be installed. The ocean side is left clear so as not to sully the view.
Every morning I’d train alone for an hour and a half, doing forms facing the sunrise over the water dressed in black pants, stripped to the waist, working on my tan as well as my tan sao. In this fabulous environment, motivation to train would not be a problem, nor would fatigue.

Well, we all should have a dream.

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I arrive at the Kung Fu school early. My turn to take the class. Two junior students are here already working out. One guy, call him Alan, I’ve seen before, he’s done another martial art and has really nice kicks. He’s popping them out now, sets of ten, doubles, triples. Impressive; his left leg roundhouse off the front foot sizzles. I’m jealous.

The other guy, Ben, is working on a footwork drill I showed him in class last week. He found it awkward, and he’s running through it now, over and over. He still looks a little uncomfortable and klutzy with it, even after all this practice.
Everyone who comes in watches our budding Van Damme. One new student asks, “Can you teach me to kick like that?” I shrug and mumble something noncommittal. Ben is mostly ignored, or scores the occasional smirk of pity or derision.

The thing is, I don’t regard my task as teaching people to kick like Alan. I want to teach people to train like Ben.

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In a previous life I spent about 5 years training in XingYi and BaGua under a then quite popular instructor who has now vanished from the Sydney Martial Arts scene without trace. This guy was EXTREMELY knowledgable about the styles he taught and related subjects such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, having spent many years in Taipei and Hong Kong.

I believe these martial art styles are sound; but I learned much more weird stuff about Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chinese alchemy and psychopathic desires to control others, and much less combat art, than I wanted.

This instructor was definitely from the Dark Side of Qi. He seemed to take pleasure in surrounding everything with a thick aura of mystery, and continually hinted at superior knowledge he had for which we were “not yet ready.” He also seemed to take pleasure in manipulating his students, making them choose between loyalty to him and their Significant Others, and in general promoting attitudes of awe and dependence towards himself. We’d be sent on all kinds of strange errands or set regimes and schedules of diet and meditation, etc. which were then discarded or forgotten about before their completion. Questions regarding these regimes, and the reasons for them, were either met with an enigmatic smile, or actively discouraged. A cult? You decide.

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Thousands of people have come through our school’s doors and joined up over nearly fifteen years. It takes the average person five years or more to reach instructor-qualified level, which is but another milestone on a road of lifelong training and self-discovery, but a worthy achievement nonetheless.

But in that fifteen years, only twenty-odd people out of those thousands have come that far. What constitutes “the right stuff” when it comes to success in Wing Chun, or any other martial art?

The dropout rate is unrelated to poor instruction. Both Sibak Rick Spain, the head of our organisation, and Sifu Alfredo del-Brocco, the Queensland chief instructor, run full-time professional schools with thriving memberships of dedicated students. Both have won awards and been applauded by their peers for excellence in martial arts instruction.

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