Quote:
Graham Christian wrote:
As to teaching? When you look at him as a great keeper of national tradition and culture and identity despite Americas attempts to change it then you will have to notice that there was culturally and historically a way of teaching such martial disciplines.
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Culturally and historically, most martial disciplines were taught only to a select few -- a particular lord's retainers, for instance -- and lives depended on making sure that students actually did learn what they were being taught. I wouldn't call it "spoon feeding," but there was a step-by-step pedagogy by which people could learn what they needed to learn to advance in the art. It might take a lifetime to achieve "mastery", but a school that couldn't produce competent swordsmen in a much shorter period probably wouldn't last very long.
Katherine