Saturday, March 11, 2006

The Student You Don't Want to Be (1)

In my 25 years plus of teaching I have come across many students of martial arts that don't exactly make it easy for themselves - not to mention their fellow students as well as their teachers...

In this series we will look at some of these "difficult" students. Not by name of course, but by specific and more general traits.

1. The Collector:

Here's a person who knows more than 100 variations of a defense against any given attack. Thousands of obscure (and totally useless) wristlocks - No problem!

Collectors are never totally satisfied unless they have learned something new to add to the collection. They tend to be bored after a few repetitions (like two or three...), when they wish to do something else.

The main thing for them is not to be able to use the 750.000 + techniques – just knowing about them is.

If you wish to succeed in any martial art you do not want to be a Collector! There is nothing wrong with knowledge, of course. Just don't forget that martial art is about doing :-)

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