Water Boxer, Author at Grant Ching Water Boxing Association

Why You Can’t Beat Your Teacher

So you read my last blog post (Your Goal Should Be to Beat Your Teacher) and made it your goal to beat your teacher. But after training for a few years or maybe even many years, you still can’t beat them. Consider the following:

You’re very likely starting your training later in life than your teacher. Learning a martial art is not unlike learning a language—starting when you’re young can be a big advantage. Did your teacher start when they were six years old, while you’re starting when you’re 30? If so, your teacher had almost a 25-year head start.
You probably can’t train as much as your teacher did/does. This is especially true if your teacher is “old school,” from a generation or culture where training several hours a day every day was possible and maybe even the norm. Nowadays few of us can dedicate more than an hour or two a day a few times a week. And if your teacher is a full-time instructor, they’re putting in way more time just by “going to work.”
You’re in a different environment than the one your teacher learned in. Related to the “old school” concept above, did your teacher learn during a time when you had to learn to fight just to survive? Or did they fight a lot because it was considered fun and a pastime? Times and cultures have changed.
You’re not your teacher, who may have an innate advantage. For example, have you ever wondered how/why your teacher moves so fast? It could be they were born with more fast-twitch muscle fibers. Or have you ever wondered how/why your teacher is so powerful? Maybe they really are just bigger/heavier than you are or it could be that they were born with a superior structure.

I could go on, and I’m sure you can even come up with good reasons (not excuses) on your own. But don’t forget that these are reasons why you can’t beat your teacher—not reasons why you shouldn’t strive to beat your teacher. In fact, I might argue that these reasons might ultimately be the ones that enable you to someday beat your teacher; they may force you to do things differently (and better) than your teacher in order to beat them.

Your Goal Should Be to Beat Your Teacher

“Your goal should be to be better than me.” I’ll never forget how shocked I was when Sifu Paul Roberts told me this. I had just started learning from him and we were casually chatting about his teachers’ skills as well as recounting stories of past martial arts legends. When he asked what my goal in training with him was, I told him that I wanted to get good. I had never considered beating him (or any or my previous teachers) as a goal. It seemed not only unthinkable but also, well, disrespectful. Who the hell was I to think that I could surpass my sifu?

In fact, I had never heard of teachers encouraging their students to strive to be better than they are. If anything, it was usually just the opposite, with teachers cultivating a culture/environment in which they (and their own teachers) were supreme authority figures, almost god-like, and their skills unbeatable to the point of being mythical. But all of a sudden, here was Sifu Roberts not just encouraging but practically demanding that I strive to be better than he is. It was jolting, but I realized a little later that I needed to be jolted.

From what I’ve seen, martial arts tend to perpetuate deification more than most endeavors. I think there are several reasons for this, including the Asian culture in general, the people/personalities that martial arts tend to attract in both teachers and students, and the business/economic advantages for a school in setting unattainable (or vague) goals.

But whatever the reasons, deification is detrimental for the individual and for the art because it prevents both from progressing. That was Sifu Roberts’ (and that is now my) main reason for encouraging students to make their ultimate goal beating the teacher—we want the art and our students to progress.

Think about how far technology has progressed because Bill Gates and Steve Jobs made it their goal to improve on what was then considered “high-tech.” Although they surely respected their professors and the tech leaders of the time, they also must have believed that they could in some way go beyond these individuals. Had Gates and Jobs instead deified them, you might very well be reading this blog post in the form of a printed monthly newsletter instead of on your smartphone or tablet.

Although I expect my students to strictly follow my methods (at least for a while, in order to understand and apply the principles) and to respect me (even when they do surpass me), I remind them that if I’m a good teacher, my goals should be to teach them to beat me, and that if they’re good students, their goal should be to learn to beat me. When they do beat me, they and the art will have been taken to ever higher levels.

So now you may be asking yourself if I’ve surpassed Sifu Roberts. It’s a good question and one that you can answer if you come train with us. Hope to see you soon.

Structure Is Power

In a YouTube video that I watched recently, a respected tai chi teacher is asked by an interviewer whether power comes from structure. The teacher replies that, in his view, power does not come from structure. He attempts to demonstrate this on the interviewer by assuming what appear to be compromised, poorly structured postures. He then allows the interviewer to trap, for example, his arms, after which he releases his power (supposedly without using structure) and pushes the interviewer back. During this demonstration, he reiterates that his power does not come from his structure. He says that it comes from sung and/or chi.

I find his demonstration of power impressive, but I think his explanation that it comes from sung and/or chi is misleading and may hold others back from developing their own power. If you know what to look for, you’ll see that when he is in those compromised postures, only part of his structure is really compromised while the structure in the other areas of his body (e.g., the areas the interviewer is not directly pressing up against) is excellent, enabling him to maintain his root and, ultimately, to push the interviewer back.

If he truly had no structure at all, he wouldn’t be able to even stand upright. In fact, he could completely forget about issuing power—he would fall over from just the slightest touch (or resistance) from the interviewer. Instead, it’s obvious throughout the demonstration that he has very cleverly maintained his root (even if it’s just on one leg/one side of his body), keeping the structure there while letting go of the structure in other places, for example, his arm.

By maintaining his structure somewhere else, he is not only able to stand upright and resist force (e.g., gravity, the wind, or the interviewer) but also able to transfer his own force to the interviewer. In order to resist force, you must have structure. And in order to issue force, you must have structure. This is why the first thing I teach is proper structure. In the beginning, we test our structure by using it to resist force. But later, when our structure is proper and able to resist force, we then focus on using it to issue force. (Because in the end, as my own teacher said, “Kung fu is not about taking force, it’s about issuing force.”)

Like many things in life, structure has different levels. Sometimes the structure is obvious—you can see and/or feel the large bones in the body properly aligning and forming the correct angles. Other times, the structure is not as obvious—you may not be able to see it, but a lot of smaller units in the body can align in such a way that they provide a structure that can resist and, ultimately, issue force. Think about how different ballistic glass and Kevlar fabric look and feel, yet both can resist a bullet.

Whether you develop your macro structure or your micro structure (ideally you’d do both), you must always keep one of them in order to resist and issue force. Without structure, there is no power.

The Best Way to Increase Your Power

Want to increase your striking power? Physics tells us that momentum (in other words, striking power) is equal to mass multiplied by velocity. Thus, to increase your power, either you increase your mass or you increase your velocity.

Of course, ideally you’d increase both. By applying proper mechanics, which is how we train Liuhebafa, you will indeed increase both. But, in theory and in practice, I’ve found that the best way to increase power is by focusing on applying those mechanics with the goal of increasing mass rather than with the goal of increasing velocity.

So why do we focus on mass rather than velocity? Again, physics (and biomechanics) gives us the answer: the amount you can increase the mass in your punch is many times the amount you can increase the velocity of your punch.

I found an interesting online article from Scientific American entitled “Pro Boxer’s Punch Carries Heavy Weight,” which shows the difference in speed (in essence, velocity) and force (in essence, momentum) between world-champion welterweight boxer Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton and a non-boxer. It turns out Hatton is twice as fast: his punches averaged around 25 mph and his fastest punch was 32 mph compared with the non-boxer’s best attempt, which measured 15 mph.

What’s really interesting in this study, however, is that Hatton’s force was measured at 10 times the average person’s. Let’s assume that Hatton weighs the same as the average person (Hatton fought at about 147 pounds and the average adult in Europe weighs about 156 pounds). Because his speed is twice the average person, his force should be twice that of the average person.

So how did Hatton manage to instead hit with 10 times the force? Simple: he used much more of his body’s mass than the average person uses. Most people (including many martial artists from what I’ve seen and felt) tend to punch only with their arm. A 150-pound person’s arm weighs on average about 8 pounds while their trunk (torso) weighs on average about 72 pounds (see here and here). It’s not hard to figure out (or to feel, if you were fearless enough to let Hatton punch you) that an average person punches with only around 8 pounds of mass whereas Hatton—who engages his arm and body—punches with something closer to 80 pounds of mass. (Note how nicely the math works here: Assuming Hatton and the average person have the same punch speed, Hatton would have 10 times the striking power just based on his ability to get 80 pounds of mass into his punch compared with the average person’s 8 pounds.)

When I teach Liuhebafa, I always focus on the impact that proper mechanics will have on engaging more mass. Although proper mechanics will also increase velocity, I don’t focus on it because, as we can see, it does not contribute to striking power as much as mass does.

Naturally, there is a way to increase your mass without applying proper mechanics—you simply eat more. But I suggest the only time you focus on that is after a good training session!

The Myth of the Great (and Famous) Masters

Master ______________ was unbeaten/undefeated/invincible.

You could put many great (and famous) masters’ names from the last century or two in that blank.

I say Don’t buy it. Or at least take it with a ton of salt. And I say that despite the fact that I train in and teach an art that has at least two past masters (Wu Yi Hui and Chen Yi Ren) who were said to be unbeaten/undefeated/invincible.

It’s not that I don’t respect great and famous masters from the past. In fact, I’m quite certain that many of them had skills that few masters have today, simply because it was a different time period. For example, I think it’s plausible that self-defense really was more important back when people lived in villages. I believe that a hundred years ago people had more time to train (which you have when you don’t spend all your time on Facebook). And I think it’s pretty likely that more people were training and teaching and fighting way back when (which happens when people aren’t constantly taking selfies and posting on social media every hour).

But all of those things (and others) lead me to these questions: How is it that these masters didn’t cross paths, especially when many of them lived during the same time periods and also supposedly traveled around to develop and test their skills? Because if they did cross paths, how could they all stay unbeatable/undefeated/invincible?

I suspect that these masters did sometimes meet, but that when they did, the following happened:

They didn’t fight. After all, if you don’t fight, you can’t technically lose or be beaten, right? (I myself am unbeaten/undefeated in tournament fighting, but that’s a matter of semantics for me because I’ve never fought in a tournament!)
They did fight, but they agreed to keep the results private or the fight ended in a draw.

It’s pretty obvious that all sorts of reasons exist why these two things would happen. For example, in a culture in which losing face is a big deal (which in many Asian cultures it is), you can see where keeping the results private would be the way to go. Also, if your livelihood as a teacher (which most of the great and famous masters were) depends on your reputation, once you’ve established that reputation, why jeopardize your income by fighting someone who might beat you, especially if losing could seriously shrink that income? And except for the hypercompetitive (which perhaps some of the greats were), why would you risk serious injury or death if you’ve already made it and you’re on top?

I used to be really impressed when I’d hear about how a master was unbeaten/undefeated/invincible. Now I’m not as impressed. Because I know it’s a myth. And I think it’s time that we acknowledge that this myth actually hurts us as martial artists more than it helps. Instead of legitimizing how great a master is, I think it often makes the master and the associated art seem like they come out of a comic book. And that’s probably not a good thing if you’re living in reality.

So then what does make a great martial arts master? I think we can look at other endeavors and apply many, if not all, of the same criteria. Hardly anyone would argue that Muhammad Ali (boxing) and Babe Ruth (baseball) and Efren Reyes (pocket billiards) and Jackie Joyner-Kersee (track and field) aren’t among the greatest (if not the greatest) of all time in their sports. But were they unbeatable? Not at all.

But these greats did succeed a lot. They were tough to beat. They were dedicated. They competed against the best in their era. They weren’t afraid to lose. And they all worked hard, making whatever natural talent that they had even better. Those are the things that make a great master. And those are the things that will make you great (and maybe famous).

The Importance of Training at Home

“School is for learning, home is for practicing.”

A fellow martial artist told me that 20 years ago.

It’s a big point that I think a lot of people miss. In fact, I’ve gone so far as to tell prospective and current students that if they’re only going to train when they come to class, I won’t teach them.

Why such a harsh perspective? Because you only get the real benefits of training when you do so on your own outside of school. This is especially true if classes are only an hour or two, once or twice a week. That kind of training schedule just does not have enough time and regularity in it. But even if your school offers two-hour classes four or more times a week, I believe that to get maximum benefit from a traditional martial art like water boxing (Liu He Ba Fa or Liuhebafa), you still must practice at home. It’s not only about how much you train but also about how you train.

When you’re at school, you should, of course, follow the proper etiquette and protocol. But I suggest that, as much as possible, you optimize your time in class by taking advantage of the presence and guidance of your instructor and fellow students. So, for example, if you have a choice between doing a form with other students or pushing hands/sparring with other students, I’d say go for the latter. (I know that this isn’t always possible because the format is very structured in some schools, but I know that in other schools, the format is more flexible.) Use your time training at school to learn from and interact with others, whether it’s getting corrections from the teacher or playing and exchanging with other students.

Then, when you’re at home—in other words, not at school—train what you learned in class. Practice your form. Practice your postures. Practice pushing hands and/or sparring with people from other schools or even with those who have no formal martial arts background at all (assuming they want to, of course). Practice shadow boxing parts of your form. And so on.

Practice makes better. (I hesitate to say that “practice makes perfect” because I think that concept can actually limit your growth or even harm you. More on that in a separate post.) And practice at home, away from school, makes even better by:

Reinforcing what you’ve learned, keeping you motivated, and making your art something you are all the time (rather than just something you do while at school)
Testing what you’ve learned, especially if you practice and exchange with people not associated with your own school
Giving you an appreciation of what you’re learning at school and even of just being part of the school, thus making your time at school more cherished and valuable
Allowing you to reflect and truly internalize what you learned under more relaxed conditions, which will change how you perceive and feel things in your body

So how much should you practice at home? Of course it depends on a lot of factors, but I tell my students even just a half hour every day will make a difference over the long term.

“Master” Versus “Teacher”

In traditional martial arts, the terms “master” and “teacher” are usually used interchangeably. But for the sake of this post, I make the following distinction:

A master is someone whose own martial skill level is (or was) high
A teacher is someone who has students whose martial skill level is high because of him/her

This is the same distinction that is often made in sports: a (good) player versus a (good) coach. Good players don’t necessarily make good coaches. And good coaches weren’t necessarily good players. The skills and methods to be a good player or master are not exactly the same as those to be a good coach or teacher.

Note that I emphasized above that a teacher is someone whose students are good because of him/her. Why the emphasis? Because sometimes students (of a bad teacher) were already good from having studied with a different (and good) teacher. And sometimes students become good despite having a bad teacher (note that this is not the same as students becoming better than their teacher, which I’ll discuss in another post). And then, of course, some people are just freaks/naturals and would be good almost no matter what.

So in the world of martial arts, a master has his/her own martial skill. And a teacher might have his/her own martial skill, but for sure his/her students (depending on their own abilities and other factors) should have martial skill from having studied with him/her.

Turns out some people are masters, while others are teachers. And occasionally—but not that often—people are both. Unfortunately, quite a few are neither.

So what’s most important for you to find? A master? A teacher? Both? (More on this in an upcoming post.)

Welcome to the Grant Ching Water Boxing Association site

Thanks for stopping by to see what the art of water boxing and my association are all about. Because sites packed with information on the art’s history, theory, and lineage (including my teacher’s site here) already exist, I’ve tried to limit that type of content.

Instead, I’ll be keeping this site relatively clean and concise. And my posts will likely go beyond the art of water boxing to include other arts as well as my own experiences, perspectives, and revelations.

Last but not least, I must thank my girl, Jennifer Pakradouni, for the absolutely amazing logo design. She has the eye of both a graphic and a martial artist—she’s not only wonderfully creative, but she’s also an accomplished Hung Gar practitioner who leaves bruises on my arms!

Enjoy the site, and please visit regularly.