Best advice ever given? “Know yourself and exactly why you are training in the martial arts, then carefully select the best role model teacher who directly addresses your motivating passion.” 

50 years ago I looked all across America for a teacher who inspired me with his skill, ability to teach, and who lived an exemplary life. Awkwardly, too many martial artists I found in the early 1970s were into the drug scene, suffered from disastrous relationships, and seemed to put self-promotion ahead of sharing warrior discipline. I was finally driven overseas to find a teacher worthy of me, and a martial art that clearly addressed what I wanted to get.

It is so important to consider the character, knowledge, life values, and life style of anyone you would call teacher. You are getting so much more than just technique. You are getting a way of thinking, a way of relating to problems, a way of finding solutions, a way of regarding those who would attack you, and even a way of dealing with those who would befriend you. 

Unfortunately, I have seen too many young students sign on with a real low life teacher, perhaps knowing his flaws, but convinced they can learn some technique without also taking on his negative aspects. I silently shake my head. It is just not worth the risk. Pick a skilled teacher you respect and hope to be like one day. Training with a bad person is its own punishment.

This naive ignorance regarding a teacher’s influence is even more awkward today. When I was studying martial arts in the 1960s, the most important question was, “Who is your teacher?” That does not seem to count for much these days. Young people seem to have no appreciation for the importance of lineage in martial arts study. Everybody is on their own, taking little bits from various seminars and blending a best-guess as to what is proudly called one’s “own system”.

I say find someone who lives what you admire, and commit to studying with them.