Many years ago I was part of a class run by people who were well qualified and friendly. However, I felt separated, and I suspected an underlying contradiction, as if they had something on their mind. This showed clearly when Dan arrived. He was an amiable man who observed the formal courtesies without fault. The instructor at his club had died and he was looking for a place to train. As he joined in the class, the confidence and dexterity of the instructors went on hold, as if waiting to see his standard.
It struck me as odd that if they had reached a level of proficiency it could not simply diminish because Dan had arrived. When Dan joined in with the activities the mood became silently critical, and later when he left, the criticism became vocal. Their assessment made Dan less than satisfactory.
I wondered how it was that a particular style could have varied results in those who professed to be traditional. As one of lesser status, I felt Dan had put in a good performance, a little different perhaps, but the quality was there. However, he seemed to produce anxiety, and the group was inclined to be aloof when I gave my opinion. They appeared to be unwilling to share their martial arts experience and were defensive. Dan had not given any sign of aggression. To the contrary, he was respectful and willing to fit in, but was quietly frustrated by their reluctance to make him part of the group.
I felt this was not simply a question of territory or privileges, but something in their psychological makeup. I had watched Dan leave and wondered if he had an ulterior motive. For sure, he took nothing with him when he left, except a hint of disappointment.
The whole experience, for me, underlined the personalities of the instructors, rather than a standard of martial arts. The instructors appeared to be acting on unconscious prompts, and were hardly aware of their reaction to Dan, but to me it was as clear as a signpost pointing towards character traits that were part of their conditioning.
Over time, I saw something very similar in different clubs, and I realised it was their way of protecting their own little empires. They had a fear of being undermined, and had a ceiling to their abilities they wanted no one else to know about. Once I had seen this, it was hard to miss.
Since then I have met and worked with a variety of martial arts personalities. They all appeared to have a ceiling to their abilities and for some it was higher than for others. I found this curious because martial arts are a structure of techniques that must be the same for everyone, so why did that ceiling exist. Because I found no answer in the martial arts themselves, I continued looking towards the personalities of the martial artists. It was interesting that they all displayed different attitudes. There were those who tried to disguise their timidity due to bullying at an early age. Some appeared passive, while others were aggressive.
Through our conversations I began to notice a pattern that showed the passive ones had grown up in well-rounded families, whereas the aggressive ones had tough social backgrounds. Because of this they expressed their understanding of martial arts in different ways. Descriptions from people who knew the aggressive ones said that their behaviour was not typical of their parents, who appeared to have opposite personalities but did, when provoked, display a predisposition for aggressive behaviour. Conversely, some of the passive ones had aggressive parents.
I had no access to their family history, but over a period of time recurring patterns of behaviour encouraged me to think that subject to disposition, much of their behaviour was transferred from parents, but mostly it was the behaviour which was unseen. For example, sometimes parents had wishful thoughts about what they would do if given the chance. This wishful thinking had an expression which was picked up by the child who, not having the same inhibiting factors of the parents began to experiment by carrying out those wishful thoughts. Because the parents offered no correction, or were unknowing, the child saw its actions as acceptable – by doing nothing the parents had endorsed the behaviour of their child...