I used to think, in my naivete, that good teachers attract good students, and that nice teachers attract nice people to be students. I still believe this is overall true, but with a corollary: nasty teachers will not really attract nice students, but nice/good teachers will attract not only nice students, they will attract nasty people as well (one could say that nasty people are all over the place - I really don't think nice teachers attract any more than their quota).
A good teacher might weed out students who don't fit in to her overall philosophy of teaching budo, but it seems that a nice teacher will not (and I think a bad teacher won't care). Certainly, when I was teaching at my old place, I was careful to guard what I felt the place needed to be, and I had to do it from time to time in the face of my old sempai, who never wanted to deny anyone membership. I would also give people a try, but unlike him, if a new student was disruptive or rude or bad-tempered, I did my best to minimize his (generally his) involvement, both to protect other people and in hopes that he would take the hint and find a place more suitable to train (i.e., not with us). To be honest, there were really only three times that we had people troublesome enough to warrant a real reprimand, and in the way things were being run at the time, either Otani Sensei or a majority of the yudansha made the decision. While I made suggestions, I never did anything by myself.
As I have pointed out many times, good manners are a top requisite in a sword dojo. The practice of iaido itself has been overlaid with rituals and politeness in order to deliberately impose a sense of decorum on practitioners. Swordsmanship is so potentially dangerous as a practice, there is simply little else that can be done. But, as I have found out, outward manners do not eliminate political intrigue. Factionalism can take place all the while the proprieties are being observed.
When a nice teacher retires or dies (I have had an example one of each), if the not-nice students are still present, it is a strong bet that one of them will be the successor, in spite of the wishes of the previous teacher. I have seen this happen two-for-two so far. The nice people are pushed aside, the not-nice people assert themselves the way they normally do in other aspects of their lives, and the character of the group changes. The nice people either hang on out of a sense of desperation or vestigial loyalty, or they will leave. Or they will become more like the new teacher themselves, consciously or not.
One of my naive ideas does still hold true: students will do as their teacher does. If the teacher is ignorant of the cultural context of practice, the students will exhibit next to no curiosity themselves. If the teacher is arrogant and thinks he knows more than he really does, the students will do likewise and think nothing of it. If a teacher is unscrupulous in his personal life (I know, I know - it's not anyone's business), the students will decide that maybe dealing honestly with people is not very important either.
Otani Sensei used to give us little homilies about behavior from time to time. Generally speaking, all of us, including me at the time, used to listen politely but then not worry about what he was actually saying. I had a moral education of a sort, so I used to blow off these exhortations the way I used to blow off church attendance as a teenager. But I now see there was a reason for his mini-lectures. He was trying to forestall what eventually happened - at least in America, aggression wins out, and the others either change to suit or go elsewhere.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Evolution
Many changes have taken place over the past 3-1/2 years that I have been teaching on my own, and I realized something in the process - as an old friend of mine used to say, "You can't go home again." It's a cliche' but it's true - even home is not really home once you have really left it. Sometimes, in fact, it is better than home used to be, but for sure it will not be the same as it was when it was really the only home you knew.
Early on in my independent career, I tried to replicate my past experience (and success, for that matter). I rented space, hung out a shingle, and I attracted some students. And it was paying for itself, more or less. But for various reasons (and not all of them entirely attributable to me alone), the idea did not last. Some people had to move on, we lost the space due to the studio closing, and the new space cost enough more money than the last one to make the losses significant. People come and go through a dojo - only a handful will stay. From a business perspective, one has to keep attracting people so that the "serious" people have a base from which to practice and learn even when attendance becomes thin.
The next phase, as it were, was to teach at a community college. An interesting, if not ideal, situation. Community college in NYC is a unique animal. It does offer practical-oriented education at a reasonable price; but the students who come are literally all over the map. It is a credit to the system that the student mix includes people returning to try to finish their education, exchange students from everywhere, and people who are the first in their families to have any education beyond high school. The drawbacks are also numerous - students can be very young, and sometimes from distressed families - family drama can force a student into an academic quarter off, or even force her to leave college altogether. As an instructor in the recreation program, I get used to the endless cycle of class schedules and other things. On the other hand, they can be a great deal of fun. The women's movement has been very much under fire in the 00's, but one thing these mostly working-class kids have is much more respect for women than the middle-aged men who used to come to our old place. Their mothers are often heads of households, breadwinners, and no one to mess with. I am the recipient of this welcome change in attitude.
In addition, most recently, I have started teaching at a Japanese cultural center which was started by one of my students. It's a nice space, though we frequently have to be careful of the overhanging artwork in the gallery-cum-classroom. Important to iaidoka, it has a very nice, smooth, and flexible floor. The students who come in are more of a mix of people - some of the community college kids, some from the outside. The partners running the space handle publicity, and my job is to show up and teach - a relief to a former dojocho.
All the same, there are times when I just feel like a hired hand, though of course, I am more than that. And I miss the cameraderie of the old model, if not some of the individuals. Recently a former student came to visit (she now lives in Australia). Naturally we reminisced a little. After she left, I began to reminisce more - like the time a group of us went to Canada for a seminar together and got caught by bad weather. Perfect dojo organization - three people stayed at the baggage carousel to collect our things while two of us, credit cards in hand, went to two different car rental kiosks to get a one-way vehicle big enough to accommodate everyone. And we succeeded in getting everyone back before dawn. One of my former students behind the wheel, me playing navigator, driving through a night of big thunderstorms of an upstate New York summer while everyone else was asleep in the back. There were Iai demos that I organized and scripted - the extra practices and handholding of nervous budoka, and the feeling of relief when it was all over. And Otani Sensei - pushing, cajoling, and ultimately - approving.
Was that me? Yes. Is that gone? Yes. And since I can't go home again, I am hoping that whatever comes up next will at least be that much fun.
Early on in my independent career, I tried to replicate my past experience (and success, for that matter). I rented space, hung out a shingle, and I attracted some students. And it was paying for itself, more or less. But for various reasons (and not all of them entirely attributable to me alone), the idea did not last. Some people had to move on, we lost the space due to the studio closing, and the new space cost enough more money than the last one to make the losses significant. People come and go through a dojo - only a handful will stay. From a business perspective, one has to keep attracting people so that the "serious" people have a base from which to practice and learn even when attendance becomes thin.
The next phase, as it were, was to teach at a community college. An interesting, if not ideal, situation. Community college in NYC is a unique animal. It does offer practical-oriented education at a reasonable price; but the students who come are literally all over the map. It is a credit to the system that the student mix includes people returning to try to finish their education, exchange students from everywhere, and people who are the first in their families to have any education beyond high school. The drawbacks are also numerous - students can be very young, and sometimes from distressed families - family drama can force a student into an academic quarter off, or even force her to leave college altogether. As an instructor in the recreation program, I get used to the endless cycle of class schedules and other things. On the other hand, they can be a great deal of fun. The women's movement has been very much under fire in the 00's, but one thing these mostly working-class kids have is much more respect for women than the middle-aged men who used to come to our old place. Their mothers are often heads of households, breadwinners, and no one to mess with. I am the recipient of this welcome change in attitude.
In addition, most recently, I have started teaching at a Japanese cultural center which was started by one of my students. It's a nice space, though we frequently have to be careful of the overhanging artwork in the gallery-cum-classroom. Important to iaidoka, it has a very nice, smooth, and flexible floor. The students who come in are more of a mix of people - some of the community college kids, some from the outside. The partners running the space handle publicity, and my job is to show up and teach - a relief to a former dojocho.
All the same, there are times when I just feel like a hired hand, though of course, I am more than that. And I miss the cameraderie of the old model, if not some of the individuals. Recently a former student came to visit (she now lives in Australia). Naturally we reminisced a little. After she left, I began to reminisce more - like the time a group of us went to Canada for a seminar together and got caught by bad weather. Perfect dojo organization - three people stayed at the baggage carousel to collect our things while two of us, credit cards in hand, went to two different car rental kiosks to get a one-way vehicle big enough to accommodate everyone. And we succeeded in getting everyone back before dawn. One of my former students behind the wheel, me playing navigator, driving through a night of big thunderstorms of an upstate New York summer while everyone else was asleep in the back. There were Iai demos that I organized and scripted - the extra practices and handholding of nervous budoka, and the feeling of relief when it was all over. And Otani Sensei - pushing, cajoling, and ultimately - approving.
Was that me? Yes. Is that gone? Yes. And since I can't go home again, I am hoping that whatever comes up next will at least be that much fun.
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