Josh Young wrote:There are a few secrets still out there in various groups, it varies of course, I know one instructor who reserves specific techniques and attacks in terms of drills and instructions, he teaches them only to upper level students, and is a WTBA instructor.
yeah, i found that weird as well. Your buddy was talking to me one time and he told me he was just learning one form from his teacher, after 5 years or something. Eli is teaching that stuff NOW to folks (and Erle taught it years ago (aournd 1994) and had it out on video). The material was some of the first that I learned, so it was bizarre to me. All I can say is, there are people in EVERY system that want to make more out of things than what was intended.
That said, there are some teachers that INSIST on making sure the student has the basics down cold (which is just good martial arts, in my opinion). And the other side of the coin is, MOST people think they are better than they are (myself included), so, while I may think that I am ready for such and such, talking to my senior, it may be that i am not, in fact, ready for it... that i do not have the foundations for that method yet, which means that i will be wasting my time.
One of the hardest things to understand (and I was just chatting with a guy that ran into this issue, who learned parts of the information from Erle, but bought DVDs to learn more) is that you have to start at the beginning! It is VERY common for folks who purchase WTBA materials, buy the advanced stuff and start there with no foundation. Some go on to teach, and cannot figure out why they arent getting the progress.
All that said, are there secrets? NO! And YES! If you watch full DVD's of Erle's stuff (not youtube clips) you start to see that he put things out there. He even went so far as to repeat himself over and over on the more important principles, yet, few of the people present or watching the DVD's were ready for that information. I, myself, had watched one DVD for nearly 9 years, and am shocked at how much he continues to sneak on to the DVD. A lot of it is the understanding of the individual, and as you know more, more makes sense.
I have thought some on what i put previous, and in a way, I have to refine my answer. To tell a new student that "THIS IS A CLASSIC" will cause tremendous confusion. However, telling that same student to (and it must be demonstrated) gently tuck their chin in AND SHOW THAT and CORRECT THEM, accomplishes the exact same thing, yet leaves none of the confusion. So, in other words, making the classics understandable in the body knowledge (to borrow from Park Bak Nom), is more important than the actual classic, because now they can use it without thinking on it. Hope that helps.