武德What are the Expectations for a  Good Student - Teacher Relationship in Wu Shen Pai

To be accepted by a Sifu is a great privilege.  It entails being adopted into their family.  It involves a deep and serious commitment to both the teacher personally and the teachings of your Sifu’s art.  Most of all, the acceptance of a student and the student’s willingness to be accepted into a teacher’s lineage are a matter of deep relationship.  The development of enduring martial relationship with your Sifu is a sign of maturity.  Like all relationships, there are some obligations and responsibilities on both sides of the relationship.  I have found that understanding the expectations initially and communicating clearly our intent, is a key to successful student - teacher relationships.  I always emphasize that the relationship between the True Student and the True Sifu is a complex one that is rooted in the interdependence of several qualities.  These are Trust, Loyalty, Discipline, Obedience, and Respect.  There can be no Student-Sifu relationship without these five cornerstones of relationship.     

The True Student:

1. It is your duty to always try your best without complaint. Wu Shen Pai will generally push your limits, so that what was intolerable before is not a problem now.

2. Always keep yourself clean and your workout clothes clean. If you come from work with dirty hands and feet, body, clothes, or clouded mind cleanse them before class.

3. Keep your nails short for both hands and feet. Nail scratches are hard to heal. It is an expression of your strength to not injure your partners.

4. Keep your training area clean without being asked. The same goes for the dressing rooms and bathrooms.

5. Keep remembering the phrase "it's not what your Kwoon does for you, it's what you do for your Kwoon." This applies to your training at all traditional martial arts schools as well.

6. Pay your dues in a timely manner. Set an example of appreciation. This is a sign of respect.

7. Always address your teacher with their title or any other practitioner with titles earned by training -- in or out of the school.

8. Remember the teacher's birthday with some small gift. The same applies to Christmas if that is part of our or their tradition. Show you are a giver and not a taker.

9. Help other students to get better, this will improve yourself, and it is an obligation of a senior practitioner.

10. If you visit other schools, always show the utmost courtesy and respect. How you present yourself is a direct reflection of your teacher.

11. Never ask to spar when visiting a school. This is considered a challenge and most likely this will not end well for you and the martial bond of respect is broken. This is for both students and teachers.

12. Never spar to beat on someone. Trying to hurt your partner looses dignity. Spar to test yourself, not prove yourself to your partner. Help your partner if they have a skill level lower than yourself. This strengthens your martial integrity.

13. If you want to train in Wu Shen Pai and you are from another school, traditional practices are the best behavior.  Never show your skills no matter how skilled you are. Go there to learn and not to show.  Empty your cup of tea.

14. It is proper to ask your teacher for permission to visit other schools. If you are part of the Wu Shen Pai tradition, it is not appropriate to train elsewhere.  A student has one martial art identity.  

15. When you are being shown new moves in forms or techniques, never go beyond where the teacher takes you, regardless if you see it as simple for you or not. Forging ahead without the teacher's instruction or okay tells the teacher that you don't need their instruction anymore.  Traditional teachers will pull back immediately from your breach of instructional ettiquette.

16. Respect: It is better to go over and beyond in the area of respect than to show less respect than you should. Saluting in Wu Shen Pai is about respect and not about bowing down to someone. Saluting is like the American handshake, except that respect and honor is why you do it and not money. Your respect and appreciation is shown by saluting as you.
a. Go in and out of the school, bowing to your teacher in and out of the school, as well as for senior students.
b. If you are late to class, bow when entering the training area and then salute separately towards the teacher, whether they are facing you or not. When the teacher sees you and acknowledges you, then you may enter the class.
c. If you have to leave a class early, let the teacher know in advance of class. When it is time to leave, salute to the teacher, then bow out of the training area.
d. If you have to leave during a class because of sickness or injury, discuss this with the teacher and then salute and bow out properly.

17. Chronic injuries should be treated before class, and minor injuries during class should be toughed out.  But, the teacher should recognize an injury that should be treated immediately, as well as the student recognizing it.  Students need to ask the teacher for permission to treat the injury.  Sometimes immediate treatment is valuable for it allows the student to not miss training to heal something that could have been treated initially. Students need to feel assured that the teacher holds their best interests at heart in terms of your health. If this is not the case, I personally would not train under that teacher.

18. When the class is supposed to start at a certain time but the teacher is late, do not just stand around like black birds. Your obligation as a student is to dedicate yourself to train. Do not wait to be led. Start your training the minute you enter the training area, by stretching, doing bag work, forms, etc. This shows the teacher that you are there to train and do not need to be hand-fed. Cherish instruction, for it is the topping on the training cake and a privilege.

19. A student's dedication to their teacher, school, or organization is based on trust, respect, discipline, obedience, and loyalty.  All of these traits are rooted in love and honor.  At times you might feel that your teacher borders on ethical rightness. It is never your right to judge your teacher.  It is important to recognize the difference between a difference of opinion and an outright breach of ethical standard in or out of the school.

20. It is the teacher's and the student's responsibility to feel assured that the rank and lineage of one's own teacher and their teachers have not breached the ethical code for rank. To train hard under a teacher or teachers that have assumed or made up rank 'black marks' your own hard-earned rank and festers like a disease that never lets go no matter how much time you put in the art. It is your responsibility to feel assured that your teacher is going to be your teacher for life, like a father or mother that has nurtured you in the martial art code for life. If this can't be assured, find a teacher that can be relied upon for life.

21. A student does not have a choice about being ranked by their teacher. It might be slow, or it might be too fast. But the element of trust is involved.  Once you reach Black Sash level, you can reject rank honorably. Good teachers will honor this. Our particular school tests for all ranks so usually by surviving and passing a test, you truly feel you've earned it. Being ranked by a teacher who has assumed rank, and not been graded by another, blackens their own and  your own martial art spirit forever if you accepted rank from them. Now you become part of the fraud that your teacher started.  The 'right mind' is about training and not rank, which will clean your spirit.  No fraudulent deception in any martial art endeavor will allow one to master an internal martial art, for one's spirit must be clean.

The True Sifu...

1. Never shows preference in training students. The Sifu will Measure their training by skill level, determination, personal self discipline, integrity, sacrifice, and honesty. Never compare students, for each student is on a slightly different path and is trying their best to move upward.

2. The True Sifu will show gentleness and strength, kindness and reliability. The students are relying on the teacher for these qualities. A strong school has a reliable teacher.

3. The True Sifu will model the principle of sacrifice.  Though a teacher shows the student the value of sacrifice, they have to display sacrifice themselves. This can be demonstrated on a physical level (ex. letting their student get shots in with compliments and without retaliation), a monetary level (ex. paying for a students uniform in need, meals, etc.), an emotional level (ex. showing compassion for effort that fails, demonstrating humility and humbleness. Explains that you yourself have tried and failed). Demonstrate sacrifice of your human-ness.

4. The True Sifu will admit their own shortcomings: Actually wanting to make their students as good or better than they are. Admitting their own shortcomings and training their students to not have the same problem areas is a hallmark of a superior Sifu.

5. Teachers are not God.  The True Sifu understands, above all, the need to not be on a power trip. This is the one disease that effects many teachers. Good initial instruction helps eliminate this trait, but this does not insure the balance of power. Real power is never shown and to direct and teach without command is the key to the art and balance is the foundation of  power and authority.

6. The True Sifu forgives.  Teachers have to have the ability to forgive. This one trait makes a strong school and teacher. Forgiving makes the teacher stronger and more human. 

7. The True Sifu shows no anger.  To show outward anger is not only a breach of character but a loss of martial strength.  A leader needs to know that anger shows loss, and that emotional decisions in anger are never sound.  People do not like to follow angry people.  Strong teachers control this emotion.

8. The True Sifu is honest. The Sifu’s honor and honesty will set the tone for the students. Honesty is the foundation of a big house and makes for clear communication.

9. The True Sifu does not condemn his peers.  A good teacher will not condemn other arts, or students' teachers. Condemning others lowers the strength of the teacher and devalues their character. This trait usually means the teacher themselves have problems which they hide by trying to lower the strengths of those they condemn. The True Sifu will lengthen their own line rather than trying to shorten the line of others.

10. The True Sifu will model good character.  The Sifu is the one who the rest of the school looks up to.  The True Sifu will act like it.  They represent upright character in and out of the school. This is an obligation of a teacher to not indulge in any of the vices excessively such as drinking, smoking, drug use, etc.  Sifus are human, they make mistakes like anyone else, but all True Sifus have the realization that their character effects many people and a entire Kwoon is relying on them for guidance and direction.

11. The True Sifu has honor.  The concept of honor means everything to the True Sifu and the True Student.  Honor creates leadership and is the soul of the Martial Arts. Honor is not rigid.  Honor is tempered with humility.  The goal of the Sifu is to install in the student these traits without breaking the spirit of honor.  Too much or too little in the flexibility of honor can hurt the spirit or bearing of the Student.  It is the life long goal of the True Sifu to instill this trait carefully in all their students of all ranks and to be a living  example of honor in action.

12. It is the obligation of the True Sifu to train regardless of their age. Medical problems might alter this, but if this is the case, they need to have their assistants teach who can effectively demonstrate the techniques to upgrade their students. A teacher's obligation is the life-long pursuit to further and perfect their art.  The True Sifu will always maintain the attitude of being a student throughout their lives.

13. The True Sifu will never deceive their students about their rank or position. This is a disease that is never cured.  Assuming rank, whether you give it to yourself, or another teacher out of your art gives it to you, or an association that is designed to hand out rank for money, or even students ranking their own teacher so that they can be ranked higher, is the sin and disease of power. To deceive your students blackens your soul, but now days can come back to you legally, for no student wants to train hard for years under a teacher to find out that the teacher didn't have to train for their rank and deceived them. Be honest on this subject and your overall health will prosper.

14. The True Sifu's obligation is to make quality students rather than quantity. If a Sifu produces a very few instructors of Black Sash ranking, it should be considered a good sign.  The Sifu who produces many Black Belt or Black Sash instructors should be considered questionable.  If a Sifu produces a Black Sash student in less than five years, they are not producing Black Belts, they are producing someone who wears a black piece of cloth around their waist.  This is different than the honored position of a True Black Sash or Black Belt.  Every Black Sash that the Sifu produces represents their teacher, school, and art.  Being able to stand behind the quality of your students is crucial for the True Sifu.  Promoting a student to the Black Sash also involves questions of character.  When a student’s character goes astray, then the True Sifu will act quickly and forcefully to correct the situation.  Occasionally, no matter how hard one tries to uphold the integrity of the art, a student can go astray.  We try hard to avoid this but we must move on with integrity for the rest if this does happen.  The Sifu is the only judge of who represents his or her lineage! 

This practical application of the Code of Ethics or Wu De will help you understand both what you can expect from our Black Sash instructors, but also what is expected of you in your training experience at Warrior Spirit Martial Arts Academy when you enroll as a student.  While these expectations might seem difficult to master, the refinement of character is the primary objective of training in a Martial Way such as Wu Shen Pai.  The achievement of the objective is not possible and is a lifetime endeavor.  Lao Tzu notes that “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  When we see the attainment of refined character as a journey and not a destination, then it is always possible to make improvement.  It is the consistent gradual improvement of character that is expected, not overnight perfection.  We are what we repeatedly do, as Socrates noted.  Character then, like excellence, is a habit.