Chasing Rabbits

An all too common phenomena in today’s modern martial arts world are students who concurrently train under multiple teachers across multiple martial art styles. I have never really understood the reason for this as martial arts, has never really came naturally for me. Learning one style is challenging enough, I could not imagine how difficult it would be to learn two or more.

I don’t deny that there will be a select few people who are talented enough to learn multiple martial arts concurrently, and to a proficient level. I am not talking about these individuals. Teachers, like students, thrive on motivation and there is nothing more motivating to a teacher than having a motivated student. A student who asks questions, researches the history and tradition of the art and focuses on their teacher’s guidance. Conversely, students who spread themselves too thin by learning multiple styles from multiple teachers, reduce their energy available for any one style. Commitment to training in each style is diluted, as is commitment to their teacher. This may de-motivate the teacher’s willingness to teach the student, leading to a divestment in their commitment to the student over time. Why would a teacher commit their valuable time and energy to a student that has not shown the same commitment in return? Especially when there are other students who are committed.

I do believe that reduced commitment from the student does result in reduced commitment from the teacher (i.e transmission of the art from teacher to student will exponentially reduce over time). The real tragedy occurs when that same student, unready and without their teachers blessing, branches out and teaches the uninformed public. This is watering down the style.

Contrary to what some may say, there have been very few martial art teachers in history who were very proficient in more one style. Certainly, if you look back over history and count the number of such talented martial art teachers who possessed excellent skills in more than one style, it would not be proportionate to the number of “partial artists” in today’s’ modern world. Jigoro Kano, Morihei Ueshiba, Gichin Funakoshi, Choi Hong Hi, Yang Lu Chan, Wu Chien Chuan and Wong Yan Lam were (are) all highly regarded for their proficiency in just one style.

I liken the practice of learning multiple arts concurrently as chasing more than one rabbit. A person who chases two (or more) rabbits catches none. The solution is to catch one before turning your attention to catch the other.