a school that changes styles - opinions

King of Kings

Years ago I graded to a high level of traditional jujutsu after doing it for a few years. However the teacher got involved with a new crowd who did another style of Jujutsu and essentially he got his head turned and ditched the original style for the new style.

Our grades were recognised etc....

But (IMO) the new style was ****e - impractical and the contained the worst aspects of Traditional MA - the kinda of stuff the MMA crowd use to beat trad martial artists with.
It was great if you were into the nerd aspect of jujutsu and japan but not as a fighting style.

I used to think "this **** will get me killed" so after about 9 months I gave it up and went off training elsewhere and I'm happy where I am

It never really bothered me until recently but I thinking about it - I feel the sensei was wrong to decide to change styles cos he wanted too. It was pretty bad form - imo.
There was no alternative ever offered - as in the ability to go to shodan in the old style if you so desired for example

Fair enough it was his club and he can teach what he likes but I (and others) had invested many years (5 years for me) training in the old style.

What you guys think? Have you encounteed this yourselves ever? I'm I over reacting (well over thinking??)

cowzerp

King of Kings wrote: »

Years ago I graded to a high level of traditional jujutsu after doing it for a few years. However the teacher got involved with a new crowd who did another style of Jujutsu and essentially he got his head turned and ditched the original style for the new style.

Our grades were recognised etc....

But (IMO) the new style was ****e - impractical and the contained the worst aspects of Traditional MA - the kinda of stuff the MMA crowd use to beat trad martial artists with.
It was great if you were into the nerd aspect of jujutsu and japan but not as a fighting style.

I used to think "this **** will get me killed" so after about 9 months I gave it up and went off training elsewhere and I'm happy where I am

It never really bothered me until recently but I thinking about it - I feel the sensei was wrong to decide to change styles cos he wanted too. It was pretty bad form - imo.
There was no alternative ever offered - as in the ability to go to shodan in the old style if you so desired for example

Fair enough it was his club and he can teach what he likes but I (and others) had invested many years (5 years for me) training in the old style.

What you guys think? Have you encounteed this yourselves ever? I'm I over reacting (well over thinking??)

I think that sucks and is part of whats wrong with lots of Traditional arts, personally i think your right to feel aggrieved

ryoishin

Its difficult to comment without knowing the teachers reason for switching. Like if he had a falling out with his teacher etc.

Personally I would nt see switching styles as a bad thing if it was in the best interest of the people concerned or if its simply what the teacher wanted. You can always leave.

Dyr

King of Kings wrote: »

Fair enough it was his club and he can teach what he likes but I (and others) had invested many years (5 years for me) training in the old style.

Why not keep training in the old style among yourselves then

King of Kings

ryoishin wrote: »

Its difficult to comment without knowing the teachers reason for switching. Like if he had a falling out with his teacher etc.

nothing that I was aware of - certainly no feud.

ryoishin wrote: »

Personally I would nt see switching styles as a bad thing if it was in the best interest of the people concerned or if its simply what the teacher wanted.

correct - but I guess my point is does he not have an obligation to the school as in other students he had trained for many years to accomadate their views.

ryoishin wrote: »

You can always leave.

But i did leave.

Bambi wrote: »

Why not keep training in the old style among yourselves then

well I did - in terms of knowledge retention this has worked but not in terms of progression - none of us were graded high enough to grade amoung our selves. my sensei's sensei was no longer in ireland so getting him to grade us wasn't possible.

As I said now I am doing another martial art quite removed from jujutsu and I'm happy with that.

Dyr

King of Kings wrote: »

As I said now I am doing another martial art quite removed from jujutsu and I'm happy with that.

As an ex tradional jujutsu person myself I know this will sound shocking...but just say bollox to grading as a progression.

Why not just work amongst yourselves while checking what other options are available for you to progress. There's no end of jujutsu associations out there that are happy to receive affiliations from groups. You could always try travelling to train with the head guy(s) in the original style if it came to that.

King of Kings

Bambi wrote: »

As an ex tradional jujutsu person myself I know this will sound shocking...but just say bollox to grading as a progression.

Why not just work amongst yourselves while checking what other options are available for you to progress. There's no end of jujutsu associations out there that are happy to receive affiliations from groups. You could always try travelling to train with the head guy(s) in the original style if it came to that.

I disagree - In theory grading is bollocks but you need a coach / trainer / sensei to progress - maybe at a much higher level I could have but we werent at that level.

anyway whats' done is done. I could have, would have, should have but my query was do I have a right to be aggrevied.
This was years ago but a recent chance meeting caused me to think about it.

pearsquasher

I have regular chats with a martial arts teacher in my area and he himself told me how he changed styles (nothing to do with Bujinkan by the way).

The result of him doing this was a loss of several long-term students - the price he had to pay I suppose. Ironically he also told his senior student NOT to train with both me AND him at the same time. How rich is that? :rolleyes:

With teacher changing styles however, the only problem that I see is this....... Does he have the experience in the new style to change his own club? Probably not is my suspicion because of how long you have to train and how dedicated you have to be to instruct, in any style.

I mean .... you teach a regular class in style A and gather dedictated students. Meanwhile your presumably attending a totally different martial art as a studnet yourself, style B, and absorbing that way of moving. Then one day you decide to just switch your own class from A to B?

The guy I know is basically teaching his ex-A students style B parallel to his own learning of it!


I think the only way of doing this is to just open a new club in style B once you have the authority from your B teacher to do it. It's then up to your A students to decide if they want to come with you.

There's also a question mark over training your body to do one thing in A and another thing in B. You are, after all re-wrting your physical auto-response mechanism so doing both A & B to instrucor level might be counterproductive unless the two styles involve solving very different "martial" problems!
(i.e. pure kendo could work with pure judo).... In that case you're hardly going to change the dojo that you teach... you just open a parallel one.

So from the students perspective it's very unfortunate as the ones that leave will have essentially have wasted a great portion of their training and they'd also have to question just how much proper training they got under someone who was also learning other stuff. From the instructors prespective.... sure you can go and learn what you like and do what you like with your own club... but you have to be aware of false advertising and I think you have to be 100% honest with your students. Does my friends student know that the technique he's showing them has only just been learned by him at the last B seminar he attended? If they do, hwo can they accept his instuction? If they don't he's being dishonest with them and himself.

There's my 2 cents!

King of Kings

thanks for that detailed post pearsquasher.
You raise some interesting points that I didn't consider - the morality of teaching something you aren't as well versed in as you should be.

ryoishin

Ive been in the same boat OP it seems to happen alot in tjj circles.