Some short while ago, I noted that some writers have written about their practice as a way of healing and/or empowering themselves. I have always found this idea dismaying. Budo is a wonderful practice for body and mind. There are also considerable philosophical ideas behind many practices. I think these aspects are wonderful, but that does not make my practice a vehicle for psychological healing or empowerment, and it surely does not make me a therapist. What dismayed me most about these writers' thoughts on this subject was that when their teachers were mentioned at all, no one considered what it might feel like for the person who runs the local karate group to be saddled with responsibility for his students' mental well-being. Even if the teacher happens to be a licensed mental health professional, if a student is not an actual patient, it seems really pretentious to simply assume his/her practice with that teacher will somehow heal them (I guess self-centeredness is not supposed to be something a student can be cured of by practicing budo).
One teacher who ran a chigung group I took part in many years ago, apropos of nothing that we knew of, once started a class session by saying more or less the following: "I am your teacher. I teach martial arts. I am not your friend, or your dad or mom, or your kindly uncle. Don't invite me to your graduations, weddings, christenings, bat mitzvahs, bar mitzvahs or brises. Don't call me at home. Don't tell me your problems. Don't take our equipment. Don't owe us money. Just pay your dues and come to practice."
After class, I asked him why he felt the need to make that point plain. He said this (approximately): "Your students will take more out of you [emotionally] than your children ever will. Trust me." (One of his senior students later told me that the teacher had been pulled into what he referred to as a "family argument" amongst some of the other seniors in the dojo. By "family argument," he meant something that was not unusual, but not trivial either. By making that pronouncement, he may have been sending a message to his seniors, but he was also, certainly, trying to head off possible trouble in the future.)
I was, at the time, a beginning and by no means full time teacher (I simply took over the class if I was the highest-ranking person there, meaning that I actually had a little seniority in our little group by then). But I thought about his statements long and hard, and, as I became a teacher in my own right, I never forgot what he said. And I have tried very hard to be professional with my students. Though it is frequently impossible not to tell the occasional anecdote (actually, I think I'm sort of famous for them), and there are times when any human being is stressed enough to share something difficult that is going on with people whom you, after all, know quite well, I have always thought that this teacher's point was excellent, and well worth remembering.
Recently, though, I have been pulled into some drama in a student's personal life that has spilled into the dojo. It affected not only me, but others there as well, involving some flagrant misbehavior that actually threatened both myself and my sponsor with potential liability. To put it delicately, he showed up at practice in absolutely no acceptable state, put on his gi, and began swinging a sword around. We took care of the immediate problem by sending the student home. By the end of the evening, he had emailed me that he quit (upon reading this out loud to the students present after okeiko, we all laughed, actually). Like my old teacher, Mr. Otani, I had to promise my other students that I would communicate with the offending person immediately, which I did. I sent a sternly worded email that he might be allowed back to okeiko only if he never did such a thing ever again. And I decided that he would not be permitted to take part in any travel or outside activities until after a lengthy probation period; that is, if he ever returned.
I received a response that was the epitome of self-pitying aggrandizement, expecting me to "understand" the "stresses" he was going through. I did not respond.
Is it because I don't care about his problems? Actually, yes, it's exactly that. Like the chigung teacher, I am neither trained nor inclined to help this person with his personal problems in any way. And it was the height of self-aggrandizement (there's that word again) to make all of us part of his personal drama. Where do people get this idea? I think, sometimes, potential students take the idea of the self-improvement aspect of the martial arts, as well as the sometimes deliberately-misleading hype about MA as a spiritual practice, to think that helping people overcome their personal problems is part of our function. In my observation, this same misunderstanding seems to relate to why some troubled individuals join the church and become priests. They are not looking to serve others, they are trying to cope with their own enormous problems. (To be honest, the church has always sold itself as a personal problem solver. However, we have seen through recent experience that troubled churchmen are not very good at solving other people's troubles.)
Though philosophical considerations have come up from time to time in budo, along with tie-ins to Buddhist, Shinto and Daoist principles through its history, the full-blown idea of improving oneself through practice is relatively recent, and coincides with the reestablishment of practices after the Pacific War and subsequent Occupation. A cynical observer might suggest that this emphasis on personality development might have been put out somewhat disproportionately in order to legitimate practices that up until just before then had been associated with extreme nationalism and militarism (just saying). However, that does not mean that this philosophical stance is not real, or is not worthwhile. It is. But, as with everything, context is important. And misuse of the idea, whether to turn budo classes into therapy sessions, or for powerful teaching personalities to misuse students' trust, should be acknowledged. Generally speaking, a front kick is just a front kick. As a teacher, I feel it is part of my responsibility to point out that it is better not to use that front kick outside the dojo except in a metaphorical sense most of the time. But I believe that is pretty much where my responsibility ends.
This is the second time this same student has screwed up and then apologized and asked for forgiveness. I'm not giving it. Like my old chigung teacher, I teach budo. I do not give dispensation.
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