Info about Karate
The Secrets of Tai Chi Chuan
If a close examination is made of artistic, physical or scientific endeavour throughout the history of China, one cannot help but be struck by the amount of secrecy surrounding both the knowledge itself and its transmission to succeeding generations. In the case of martial arts this has undoubtedly resulted in the loss of much valuable information as each generation held back some, if not all, of its knowledge. The reason, ostensibly, for this was that teachers were frightened that one day their students might turn against them and use the very techniques they had been taught on their own masters. Similarly, such secrecy prevented mem¬bers of rival schools from coming to study with a master so that they could learn how to defeat him.
• The transmission of secrets
This then begs the question of how the secrets that the masters were prepared to entrust to the next generation were passed on. The answer lies in the disciple system. The master would spend some time assessing the character of the poten¬tial 'inside student'. In some cases this time might extend to years. The student, eager to enter into this special relationship with his teacher, would put up with, at the very least, being ignored and, at the worst, suffering humiliation and in some cases extreme physical hardship at the hands of the master.
Having decided that the student was suitable, the teacher would then signify that he was willing to accept him: to let him in the door. This entering the door often had literal implications in that the student would then be taken into the teacher's house where he would be taught, often on a one-to-one basis. Indeed, being accepted as a formal disciple meant that the student became, in effect, the master's adopted son, with all the benefits and responsibilities which that entailed.
Basically, the relationship was one of mutual responsibility, with the student's duty being to obey his teacher and to strive to perfect his art, while the teacher was under an obligation to teach to the best of his ability and to care for the development of his charge. Now participating in a 'family' relationship with his student, the master would feel that he should care for all aspects of his disciple's education: moral, spiritual and physical.
To signify the mutually binding nature of the relationship, the student would take part in a ceremony, usually of a religious nature, as well as giving his teacher a gift of money in a red packet. The teacher would also receive such red packets on his birthday and at New Year.
Once the student was accepted as a disciple, he would then be eligible to be taught the secrets of the art. His master, however, would not necessarily teach them all at once, but would rather wait until his pupil had reached the required standard to appreciate what he was being taught. That this process took place over a number of years, and in accordance with the progress and development of the student, serves to emphasise what is probably the most important purpose of the process today. If a student is simply told all of the secrets as soon as he becomes a disciple, he probably will not realise their significance. If, however, he is given the piece of knowledge most appropriate to his development at a particu¬lar time, and it is further emphasised to him that his knowledge is secret, he will pay careful attention to practicing and using this secret knowledge.
Originally, of course, when martial arts schools were isolated and students were unlikely to be exposed to more than one style, any new, different or unex¬pected move could give its inventor a considerable advantage. If, for example, you knew that most fighters employed swinging arm attacks, a straight left would be a devastating weapon.
In this modern era of the jet plane, television, video, and mass-publishing, there are very few, if any, truly secret techniques left. What the master/disciple system, with its body of 'secret knowledge', docs do, however, is to ensure that a hard-working student of good character gleans the opportunity to learn in a short space of time what it may have taken his martial arts ancestors thirty or more years of hard training to learn. Thus the student of today is given the opportunity to advance his art in new directions, and not merely to spend his life rclcarning the lessons of his forbearcrs.
In addition, the master/disciple system provides a social bonding that prevents a potentially lethal activity from descending into thuggery, as students of the art learn to function within the family of fellow practitioners. In this way, they learn that their art works not just for themselves, but also for the good of the larger group and therefore of society as a whole.
One of the practical outcomes of the disciple system is that it is relatively easy to determine the training history of any genuine practitioner of any particu¬lar art, because the majority of schools have a family tree, a record of which is handed down from generation to generation. As well as telling the genuine from the fraudulent this may also be used to determine the seniority of one student over another.
Although some may regard the secrecy surrounding the art as being counter-productive, in fact it performs a number of useful functions both for teacher and student. It provides a stable and socially positive structure for their relationship, as well as ensuring that the student and his art continue to grow and develop in a healthy and constructive manner.