How important is your martial arts lineage?
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Just because somebody comes from a certain lineage does not mean he or she is a good teacher, or has certain skills. Lineage charts maybe questionable as they encourage people to believe that an instructor is a good one just because of his lineage.
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What about the guys who don’t have this lineage? Are they bad teachers? Are they lesser martial artists? It doesn’t matter who you get taught by, what matter is the skills and methodology the instructor uses to teach. I’ve trained with people who came from very long and spectacular lineages who had really poor skills.
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Just because someone can claim a lineage it doesn’t mean that they have been taught everything in the art. Verifiable teaching skills are arguably way more important than lineage.
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Lineage’s importance in relation to credibility or trustworthiness of an instructor and school depends on what you are looking for in martial arts training. For some people, that aspect of the traditional culture, fellowship, family, and the values of passing down knowledge from one generation to the next can be very meaningful. For others, those values aren’t as important or meaningful to them.
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As a general rule, efficacy and practice of the teacher are more important than any claims from the lineage itself. Lineage may help you evaluate “how close to what is taught here, corresponds to the historical named style?” But it won’t help you evaluate the quality of martial arts taught there, nor the quality of the teachers or the teaching. Judge the school and the teachers instead. They’re vastly more important than claimed degrees of separation from some historical master, school, or concept.
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I come from a background and culture where tradition and history is deeply ingrained. With regards to martial arts, the aspect of lineage SHOULD signify that the instructor has trained properly within a system, and respected it for what it is. Unfortunately, often this is not the case.
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Teaching a martial art is not only teaching movements; it is also about passing down values and lessons, creating a nurturing environment and letting people grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. While some of those things emerge from martial arts, it is not the only source.
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So finally, with respect to lineage, it is not something I would consider to be the sole determining factor for evaluating the quality of a teacher or school. ??
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How important is your martial arts lineage to you?
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? Photo Credit: Mark Cramer: “The history of karate and the masters who made it.”
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