Recognize a good / bad master: 5 characteristics

How to tell if an instructor is worth or not

When a total beginner wants to start to practice, no matter the chosen martial art or his / her will: if the instructor is the wrong one, that inevitably makes all the difference; the reason is that from him / her depends:

• The quality of the knowledge (theory)
• The quality of the training and the training partners (practice)

Note – This article has been asked by one of our Core Course practitioners on Patreon (see how to attend our home study classes here Learn Kung Fu online: a beginner-to-expert course).

The first thing to understand is that this is the most important choice that we do when we approach the practice: to follow a bad teacher could mean to waste our entire martial life and never reach our goals.

To become able to recognize immediately poor teachers, in this article, we want to compare 5 behaviors of a good instructor with 5 of a bad one.

A note by Master Kongling – The idea is to give, even to the less expert practitioners, a few realistic parameters of evaluation (if instead we are slightly more prepared let’s read Is your instructor harming your martial growth?, here we are slightly more practical).

The 5 characteristics to focus on

These are (in random order) the characteristics that anyone can recognize, no matter the level of preparation we have. Naturally, we should not be too severe in the evaluation (no one is perfect) but:

• Recognizing only 1 negative of these parameters is certainly not enough
• If we match 3-4 negatives, that is for sure an alarm bell of unreliability
• If we match 0 negatives, we have found the right one

A note by Master Kongling – How can these characteristics be correctly evaluated? How long does it take? It depends on the cases but never without having tried at least a few lessons (read Is it legit?).

1. Humble or arrogant?

The good master:

• He / she has self-esteem
• He / she does not hide his / her limits
• He / she never claims to be an expert
• …

The bad master:

• He / she directly / indirectly exalts himself / herself (because he / she is unsure of his / her skills)
• He / she directly / indirectly exalts his / her martial art comparing it (inadequately) to the others
• …

2. Respectful or disrespectful?

The good master:

• He / she respects his / her long-term master(s)
• He / she respects his / her students and their (past) paths
• He / she encourages those who has difficulties (sincerely, extolling only what is truly correct or improved)
• …

The bad master:

• He / she talks badly about his / her long-term master(s)
• If not done with him / her, he / she totally refuses the past path of his / her students
• He / she subdues / humiliates his / her students (with insults, derisions, out-of-scale claims or worse, false compliments)
• …

3. Great or miserable?

The good master:

• He / she knows how to be heard
• He / she is also able to listen to his / her students
• His / her final goal is to make them better than him / her
• …

The bad master:

• He / she transforms each lesson in a personal exhibition
• His / her first objective is to keep his / her students inferior to him / her
• …

4. Active or inactive?

The good master:

• He / she has a wide cultural baggage
• He / she always tries to improve and never feels arrived at the end of the path
• He / she lives for martial arts
• …

The bad master:

• He / she knows only a few things and poorly
• He / she lives in (his / her) past and he / she is not able to keep abreast
• He / she lives for money (trying to take as much as possible before we will understand his / her limits)
• He / she is vague, wanders often, wastes time and misleads questions
• …

5. Practical or theoretical?

The good master:

• He / she is open and concrete
• He / she does not hide anything (sources, causes, effects, mechanics, limits of functionality, necessary premises, weak points, etc.)
• He / she focus the teaching on true abilities, applicable to real and practical contexts
• He / she is clear about combat efficacy (eg. “you fight, you learn to fight, you do not fight, you do not learn to fight”)
• …

A note by Master Kongling – Regarding the last point, as we always do, it is important to stress that Kung Fu (and many other martial arts) can be studied not only with the idea of practical combat (eg. for wellness, self-improvement, etc.) but this must be clearly said: nothing is more dangerous than thinking that we can fight, when in reality we are not capable at all.

The bad master:

• He / she is obscure, generic
• He / she does not explain / demonstrate anything
• He / she uses tricks and legends to delude his / her students
• …

Final notes

A few conclusive thoughts:

• As we have already said many times, there is something we can learn from anyone but let’s always try to maintain a certain distance from the wrong people, they influence us even if we do not immediately understand it (maybe we may follow only certain seminars for example)
• The best thing is to have many sources of knowledge to have parameters of confrontation; let’s focus on the choice of our primary master, he / she should be the most mentally opened, a sort of coach (read The characteristics of a true master)
• Let’s stay away from the ultra-belt ones (read When a belt becomes a blindfold), usually when the title is too incredible, cumulative and / or full of unnecessary frills, in most cases, it means that there is little substance; this is not valid in all cases of course but in this case let’s listen to our instincts
• Here we can download the infographic file of this discussion (that we can download in PDF format or share in PNG format)
• …

In-depth video courses

• Basic 6 Dragons Kung Fu Exercises – A set of practices designed to build real combat skills (valid for all the martial arts)

In-depth articles

• The instructor of 6DKF and the teaching method – How the 6 Dragons Kung Fu’s teacher are educated
• Kung Fu training for beginners’ fast improvement – A step by step path to rapidly reach our goals

Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

• Have you ever been bullied by a bad instructor?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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