When should you switch MA Schools?

[disgruntled]

this is a continuation of the discussion i started on the team fighting thread......

so i have been thinking of switching schools again. but the thing that concerns me is what if i switch too soon and do not learn all that i can in that style before starting the next?

i have only been taking muay thai for a year (but i did catch on real quick because i already have a firm grasp of MA). and my progress has hit a plateu (i cannot spell sorry). so i think that to further progress i have to start doing fight cards..... but i know i am not a fighter, but am willing to try for awhile to learn more..... but if i have no desire to continue a fight career, is ring experience necessary? should i just use that time to learn a new style?

but more importantly, does bouncing around like that improve your MA or hinder it? will knowing the basics of a lot of styles make you a good well rounded fighter? or will it make you a jack of all trades master of none? which is more useful/valuable, an understanding of many different arts, or understanding of very few, but a deeper understanding of them?

and this question is regarding serious MAists, not the people that take 10 classes in there life all from different school/styles and then say they now 10 different MAs.

finally, is it just me or do you all have a hard time finding a master/teacher/sensei/ajarn/sifu/etc. that will teach advanced MAist? i find that most places teach you up until your black belt and then you are kinda stuck there.... generally you get suckered into taking over classes and generally exploited all in the name of MA disapline and loyalty to your school... or have i just had some bad experiences?

[sirdarksol]

So far, I have only started arts that have more information in them than can be learned in a lifetime, so I've never hit a true plateau.

Personally, from the sound of it, I would say that you are probably ready to leave and look for something more complicated (combat tai chi, kung fu or one of the Japanese arts, for a few examples), something that can easily take the rest of your life to work on. Not that I am belittling Muay Tai, but I have heard before that, not counting actual fighting, there is a pretty definite limit to how much there is to learn.

I think that switching schools can either help or harm your knowledge of the martial arts. If you go into, say, a karate dojo and say "Alright, I already know how to kick and punch, so start teaching me the difficult stuff", you'd be doing yourself a disservice (I've seen people do this). On the other hand, if you don't flash your previous experience around, but merely draw on it as your new instructor teaches you, you will easily add new experience on top of old.

Edit: To answer your final question, running the classes is part and parcel of being a black belt in both schools that I am part of. Training at that point slows down, and what time is spent training is usually more traditional, with private lessons. I think that how this goes over with the student depends both on the student and how the sensei deals with it. For example, Sensei spends the majority of his karate/kobudo classes with the "lesser" students, but he still starts Sempai on some task, so he is learning. It's only periodically that Sensei is gone from class, and that Sempai has to run them.

[disgruntled]

yeah... still thinking about what to do..... and i think there is a lot more to muay thai, but you have to go to the right school. one of the things that i love the most about my school is that we learn techniques from many different schools of muay thai and the ajarn will tell us which style is use where in thai land, the strengths and weeknesses, and all those fun facts and techniques. having said that i do see your point.

and i totally agree about not flashing your experience around! it is always a difficult thing to balance. i want to start up with the instructors knowing that i know MA because then you can communicate on a higher more technical level, and i find i learn more and quicker... plus from my experiences teaching, it is always easier teaching someone that has other MA experience and is open to learn a new way to do things.... but on the other hand, i have run into problems with that too.... some instructors just assume that because you told them that you have a black belt that you will be one of those people that want to skip over the basics or belittle their style, so sometimes they treat you differently and act a little more defense until they get to know you better.

and yeah i understand that running classes are part of being a black belt. i just found that at my hapkido school it got to an unhealthy level. i still had to pay my class fees, but i spent all my time training low belts, never worked up a mild swet and on top of that was expected to pay for the up keep of the school (and it is not like the master could not afford it, he is just that cheep) in addition to our black belt club fees. and we only had one class a month where we got to learn new things or practice our advanced techniques. i need a school that has class where students learn new skills at least once a week........ and personally i think that black belts should pay less not more. it should be a step towards becoming a peer with your master, not further subserviant.

[sirdarksol]

Originally Posted by disgruntled

and yeah i understand that running classes are part of being a black belt. i just found that at my hapkido school it got to an unhealthy level. i still had to pay my class fees, but i spent all my time training low belts, never worked up a mild swet and on top of that was expected to pay for the up keep of the school (and it is not like the master could not afford it, he is just that cheep) in addition to our black belt club fees. and we only had one class a month where we got to learn new things or practice our advanced techniques. i need a school that has class where students learn new skills at least once a week........ and personally i think that black belts should pay less not more. it should be a step towards becoming a peer with your master, not further subserviant.

That is just wrong. I think the black belts in my karate class still have to sign up for it, and they do spend much of the class time teaching the younger belts, but the majority of the class is devoted to drills and grappling maneuvers, so they get to practice stuff, and then they usually stay late or come early and learn for themselves.

[chokdee]

muay thai is not about learning many new things it is about knowing when to use them how to make them faster and harder.
if you watch the stadium level thai's they barely do anything thats looks to complicated it is all little tricks and etc.
it all depends in what you want, do you want more knowledge or do you want to fight or do you just want to get better, the time when you learn the most is when you first start after that you will eventually think you plateau but you will be learning smaller more detailed things becomeing a better MA.

[disgruntled]

Originally Posted by chokdee

muay thai is not about learning many new things it is about knowing when to use them how to make them faster and harder.

i have got to disagree with this statement! i think you are kinda belittling the value of knowing when and how to use techniques..... yes that to some extent cannot be taught, but it is still learnt. and that is the reason i joined muay thai. i do not like sparring (to a degree), but mostly because i really suck at it. i don't like getting hit or hitting people. this is the 'new' stuff i want to learn. i never got hit really hard at my other MAs, and know i do. and every time i get hit i realize that it was not bad at all, which gives me more confidence while sparring (and reinforces the fact that i cannot drop my hands, or i need to block faster, or what ever the case may be). i need to learn how better to read my opponent in a fighting context (i have self defense pretty much down). i have to learn what it feels like to get the tar beaten out of me. i have to learn how to lead my opponent around the ring and set them up. i need to learn how to tell when some one is doing that to me (obviously i know a lot of this already, but i just have to keep learning to further strengthen the ability). every match every opponent should not only teach you a new fighting technique, but it should also teach you something about your own fighting style.

to say that you do not learn in muay thai and that it is all about becoming stronger and faster is not doing it justice.

[chokdee]

i get what your saying i ment you do not learn NEW techniques such as fancy kids like TKD and so on, muay thai is basic compaired to many of the complicated kata's of other martial arts. in that respect but in ring arts it is you learn to cut the ring how to fake how to see while getting hit etc.
but many of the movements of muay thai are simple.
IE most thai's use roundhouse cutkick and teep that is it.

[disgruntled]

yeah but in fairness it is the same in all MA..... hapkido has like 27 kicks (fewer punches and elbows than MT) and countless self defenses, but you learn the kicks very quick and the the self defenses boil down to a few basic principals and you can use them to get out of anything. you get as much out of MA as you are willing to take and your instructor is willing to teach.

[chokdee]

what i was trying to get across is that muay thai is very simple and you can pick up the basics quite fast, but it is all about application i found not about acquiring more "moves"

[disgruntled]

no, i got that.... my point is that the amount of kicks is inconsequential and that how to kick and punch are not really the basics (the basics would would be, power comes from the hips. always switch sides to use the power from the weight transfer. move around in circles not back and forth because you create more opennings. keep you body relaxed to move quicker, etc.). yes i wanna learn fancy kicks so i look cool, but i would not say that that is what makes me a better MAist. what makes a MAist is all the skills that you are referring to. and that goes for any and all MAs. those skills are one of the factors that separate MAists from tracuers or MA trickers. and they are harder to learn... i could teach someone how to do 15 kicks in the time that it would take me in teach one basic principle of MA.

i think at this point we are saying the same thing and just debating the semantics...... not that i don't love linguistics