I Was Just Thinking.
How Would You Define What Makes A Sifu Successful?
Is It How Well He Does With Having A Large Number Of Students? Or How Much Money He Makes At Gung Fu Teaching? Or Could It Be A Sifu Who Teaches Out Of A Garage, Has A Hand Full Of Students For 15 Years, And His Students Are Of Extra-ordinary Quality?
What Do You Think?
quality
those that stick with him and are good quality makes him a succussful sifu
I think it has nothing to do with money or how many students, I think it depends on the respect he gets from his students. Most sifus do not care about money its about passing on the art that they were given to them by there sifu.
I think what makes a sifu succesful is if he can find students that are geniunely interested in the art to pass down to future generations. If he can find students that are loyal to stay with him and trust in him to pass the knowledge. I beleive u have to find a sifu that can pass on the knowledge of the art, forms, fighting heigong,culture, and just to make u a better person in general.
I think most sifus will consider themselves succesful if they can find just 1 loyal student who will trust and stay with their sifu.
I agree with that, totally.
in my opinion it’s not about how many students, how many schools, or what ever you have, it’s all about the quality of students. I’d rather have two really good students, who come every class, train hard. I’d sacrifice that no problem.
do pi,
i agree with that as well. i appreciate my students because they “want” to come and train hard. I lost one who thought gung fu training was about fun and games, but i gained a new one and she is great. she’s a little older, but she tries hard, and is very unassuming. but she has a tiger in her at her age, which is so cute.
she wants to train hard with the young guys, and said today she had a group of friends she may bring over to us.
but when we hold class at the parks, many many people stop and like to watch what we do. it’s funny because we see we inspire some because we see them imitating what we’re doing.
peace.
A successful sifu has preserved his art, maintained it in himself and passed it on to another.
that’s about all there is at the core of it.
different than succesful businessman, or gadabout, or porn star, and so on.
Its funny we have students come and go they think when their joining hey im gonna learn some cool moves, then we train stances, and they dont realize its hard work, so not many come back but u now who are the loyal ones who come back and train hard.
thats what happened with me. My student left our school because he felt he wasn’t getting any attention. he said “it’s not fun anymore” so he choose to pick another sifu.
that’s cool with me, because i only want students who are interested in a little hard work to become pretty decent. This new older woman i was afraid i would push too far, but on her second day she is doing better than my original students. but i told her it won’t always be fun, and she agreed to that. she understands it’s a little hard work. but i won’t work this older woman too hard. but she pushes, she does pad work with determination. for her that’s fun. so i lucked out i’d say. she is fun to train with too. she does this little 3 step shuffle before she kicks the pads. lmao.
however, i’m the type of sifu who will always be on you when you are wrong with a technique. i don’t let any sloppiness (unless it comes from me) from my students. they look good after one year. can’t wait to get them fighting. the’ll murdelize the bums.
First and foremost, a successful Sifu can easily be recognized by the quality of his disciples and their tenure. The number of students is not nearly as important as the quality.
That is well put OM. As my Sifu says, we are never “done”. Even after he finishes taching us all he knows, even after we become disciples, we continue to train with our Sifu to explore new ideas and look at forms, techniques and the system as a whole, and look to improve it any way possible. We take the knowledge he has given us, study it, take it apart piece by piece and put it back together. Some people want to move on and learn other things, and others look to improve what they already know. I truley beleive that there is ALWAYS something new to be seen it what we already know.
Absoulutly. Like my Sifu says, “Some of the best fighters in Chinatown are waiters and busboys”
I know exactly what you are saying, but you cant please everyone. There are those who DO, and those who DONT. In the end you only want the students who DO, right?
the funny thing is, under me as his sifu he gets jumped twice and uses his gung fu to get out of some very serious situations. but recently, he went to a club and got jumped by a couple of big dudes, and supposedly my x-student didn’t fair too well since he left me.
go figure.
This is exactly how I would describe it. Well said.
I’ve had students like that. It’s easier to blame someone else for their own shortcomings. You’re better off letting them go if that’s what they want. Frustrating though. I feel for ya.
Several months ago I left my old sifu and started training with my new sifu.
Does this make my old sifu a bad sifu? No, I don’t think so. I felt like I got to the end of what he could teach me. Not to say that I mastered everything. Not even close. But I realized that my growth had stopped and he couldn’t take me any further.
Keep in mind that we trained in a “blended system”. A little bit of this, a little bit of that.
ie: a little bit of northern shaolin, a little bit of hung gar, a little bit of wing chun, a little bit of praying mantis, a little bit of tai chi…
I realized that I needed to focus on one style and that’s what I’m doing now.
My old sifu gave me all the basic tools so I can now focus on one style.
My new sifu doesn’t focus on the basics at all because he feels confident that I’m solid in that area.
Both, I’d say are good sifu’s but their situations are different.
My old sifu is trying to keep his kung fu school afloat while holding down a full time job. So he’s concentrating on getting more and more new students.
My new sifu just teaches 4 students in his kitchen a few times a month and leaves us to practice on our own the rest of the time.
Sooooooo, not really sure where I’m going with this.
Gunga, gunga galunga.
Chief Fox,
The one thing you never want to settle with is having “good basics”, that way people never want to go back and strengthen them.
You know, after 20+ years and as fas as i’d gotten, I realized that even in the higher levels, you have to have an equal balance of basics at that level. So, what did i do? I went back to all my basics, felt they were alot stronger than when of course i first started. but doing my basics now, i feel the strength already built so far, and feel the room for ever more improvement. The basics is something i will never give up, and is always the first thing during warmups.
However…sometimes a sifu only teaches what he was taught, sometimes that may be limited, in other cases it may be a whole bunch of stuff. If my sifu didn’t teach me grappling in the past because it wasn’t his fortay, that doesn’t mean I would leave my sifu, I would present the things i felt we lacked and would ask how to fill those gaps.
Your contribution to what your old sifu taught would have greatly honored him because you took a step in the direction of evolution which means his school and name will continue a while longer, and hopefully the generation after that would follow in the previous generations footsteps.
but the past is the past. and I hope your new sifu offers you what you need.
peace.
I 100% agree.
heh, how many times do you hear that on a discussion board?
You’re right about the basics, you can never practice them enough. I feel as though my old sifu provided me with the tools to practice those basics for the rest of my life.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of his school and with the demands of his full time job and family, he is not able to provide more advanced instruction on a regular basis. This is one of the reasons why I left.
My new sifu can provide this and more.
I may eventually go back to the old school. I’ve talked with my old sifu and he has told me that the door is always open.
So a successful sifu to me is: A teacher with a significant amount of well rounded knowledge to hand down, teaches in an effective manor, is a mentor and a good role model. This success can be measured by the quality of their students.
Chief Fox just made my point. It’s hard for people to understand what it really means to be a gung fu student.
Can you explain further? How did I make your point?
The relationship between student and teacher goes beyond exhausting what you as the student perceive to be the teacher’s limitations. Almost always this is not a correct perception. Because you’re a student.
I’ve seen many students take this approach over the years and it is too bad for them that they did. They missed out on a LOT of things they never realized.
My teacher used say something that I eventually grew to understand. “Everyone comes to me wanting something.”
Perhaps your former teacher really was limited as you say. However, it is more probable that you hit a plateau in your training and grew impatient. There are plateaus in this type of thing that are very difficult to overcome as they are obstacles that we put their ourselves and are simply unaware of.
I can dig that you went from a sifu who was, as you describe, spread out over family and business, to a sifu who was more one-on-one. You may very well have done the right thing. It is just that I cringe at the thought that you may have done the wrong thing. Especially since you say that your previous sifu was understanding enough to say the “door is always open.”
It makes me suspect that your previous sifu is very understanding and this hints at someone who probably knows more than he or she is letting on.
I have gone through this with some of my own students and I know they felt they had reached “my” limit. In truth, I could not progress them because they hadn’t shown me yet that they were ready. I was quite sad to see them go and I told them, “the door is open” since they were not leaving in a bad way.
In any case, I guess I kind of feel for your old sifu.