Wushu Kung Fu

Bruce Lee had some very interesting and revolutionary views on the true meaning of being a martial arts teacher.

He thought about the “teaching process” very differently to most people who saw themselves as teachers.

Here’s what Bruce wrote on the topic:

“Most martial art teachers are fixed in a routine. Because they depend on a method and merely drill systematic routines, they can only produce produce patternized prisoners according to a lifeless, systematizing concept. A teacher, a really good teacher, is never a giver of truth; he is a guide, a pointer to truth.”

So, in essence Bruce sees a teacher as a guide, and not as a “giver of truth” but as “a pointer to truth”.

Bruce then goes on to say:

“Therefore, a good teacher, or, more appropriately, a guide, studies each student individually and helps to awaken the student to explore himself, both internally and externally, and ultimately to integrate himself with his being. For example, to assist his student’s growth, a teacher might confront the student with skillful frustrations.”

Wow! There’s a lot here to unpack here… in essence Bruce is explaining the importance of teaching/guiding each student individually, not as a group.

He explains how the martial arts, and especially his art, is a means “to integrate themselves with their being”! Something, in my experience, very rare in martial arts schools.

He then advocates the instigation of learning by utilising the methodology of “skillful frustrations”… in other words creating a learning environment by the process of setting up useful challenges that by their very nature create advancement and skill acquisition.

Learning by experience, not through theory.