Go Your Own Way

When a new student commences training, all (s)he can do is copy the instructor and the sempai (senior students). While "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" holds true, imitation is all one can really do as a novice studying the martial arts. Seeing the moves of a kata for the first time makes little or no sense to the initiate. Through the alchemy of training, the practitioner matures and changes. And so then, the style is suited to fit the disposition and natural tendencies particular to the student. "Absorb what is useful, reject what is not" is the main tenet behind Bruce Lee's famous school of Jeet Kune Do. The artist is more important than the art.

Although the master-disciple relationship is pronounced in the East, the student's needs and talents are generally kept in abeyance. Carl Jung coined the term individuation to convey the idea that not only do we have a special purpose here, but a unique way of expressing it. The kohai (beginner) learns his art by rote. But to become unto oneself, all of our lessons and experiences have to be researched and adapted to our personal direction. The founders of every martial arts system were great innovators who questioned their received knowledge. The advent of a style, or any new way of doing something, is the flowering of an idea whose time has come.