What Is A Master?

"Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person."

-Albert Einstein

This blog post may be my opus dei as a martial writer. If there is one writing I want to survive me once I am gone, I would gladly include this one.

I will make it as succinct as possible, given the complicated nature of the question itself.

What is a martial master? What is martial mastery? What defines the expert from the novice, the advanced practitioner from the noob, the master from the white belt?

Especially when masters worth honoring would always wear a white belt again.

The subject matter is one I have contemplated and meditated on for years. Perhaps when I was thirteen and first awakened to wanting to try in practicing martial arts, instead of just drifting forward as I had been. Trust me, there is a marked difference between the motivation of someone who merely floats, and someone who swims.

This is a question that I have asked for a while. So much that I have written three different drafts on this very topic before deciding to ignore the previous writings on the matter and just have at it in an airport in Canada.

Frankly the question makes me somewhat nervous, because from what I have found there is no actual general definition of what a master consists of. It differs from practice to practice, from person to person. Thus, my definition will potentially and thus invariably be disagreed with by many who read it. And boy, do I dislike when people hold my views to be erred. The last time that happened I got over 25,000 views thanks to reddit on a vieo I made on youtube.

But, like going to Israel, like standing up to a gun pointed at me square on, I am throwing caution to the wind. I might-maybe-could-probably be wrong, but I Believe in what I am writing, and especially so that the capitalization was deliberate.

So let me illustrate the disparity of definitions toward what defines a 'master' concerning martial arts. If there is such a thing, I honestly ask as a final kind of point to the journey.

A master climber might be the like who scales the unscalable mountain, or boulders the rock without its crags, but every stone, and especially mountain is different, and do they stop what they love in climbing that unbeatable mountain?

No, and a lesser sojourn and path may be what befallen them, no matter how great they were. But they continue to climb and move, because that is what makes them love what they do, and therefore what they love to do is what makes them succeed.

 

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Daniel-San pay attention or I'll slap you with Koryo.

To start, there is the view that a 'master' is primarily one who has created their own style. In that sense there are very few masters in existence, comparative to the multitude who claim the title. In my opinion, their claim is deserved.

In Tae Kwon Do a martial arts master was somebody who has reached a specific rank, usually 4th dan, but I have seen exceptions. I have seen it more generalized also where a master is anyone who has considerable experience in the art they practice. This definition is very vague, for example, In WTF style Tae Kwon Do a person can reach master- ranking after only ten years potentially. I have been practicing for almost 22 years, and stopped picking up belts after my 5th first dan, at a time when I also had a 3rd dan in Moo Duk Kwan, and two second dans, as well as several underbelt rankings in other styles.

Additionally I have heard one only becomes a master of something after 10,000 hours of practice. Taking in only the last ten years of practicing, for three hours a day (my normal amount is between three and five hours a day) I just bridged 11000 hours. 

And yet, even though I do fall under the definition of master in some elements, I have never, and will ever refer to myself as one. 

This is why I prefer the label Bruce Lee coined for himself; he was, and would always be a master-student.

And that is a fundamental difference, but also a somewhat different topic deserving its own musings upon. 

To me a master is something that is always earned, but can be received as either a gift, or by recognition. The former is when one takes a test and is recognized by their teacher and their school, and receives an appointment following their successful passing of whatever conditions are in place to determine a master. The second is when one does not test, but blossoms on their own independantly into such status. I recall one teacher who we referred to as Master Arthur, even when he was a third dan. When I returned to visit the school many years later I was very happy to learn that this teacher had finally become a fourth dan, because that meant he was officially recognized by his school and system the title he had already deserved years before he ever held the dan ranking he does now.

That's just how it is; we all have met 'masters' who did disservice to the name in either ability or their character, but we also have met a few individuals who it frankly surprised us weren't masters.

Having been called an expert by others, and even a master by some, I can understand where Arthur was coming from when the students he taught referred to him as a master.

Of course we correct people; I am not a master, and in terms of being officially one with a belt in hand, having been given by another teacher, will never happen. I am done with belts, and hardly ever wear one. I received my first black belt when I was seven, and my 3rd dan when I was 13. Since then I have had numerous black belts from other schools and styles, been a head instructor to a handful, and run a school myself- to the point I am jaded with the system. I know I am capable in the arts, I don't need another belt on my rack to prove that fact to anyone other than myself. And my rack has hung belts from dojos to community colleges. There comes a time you have to hang the rack and take it down.

I have had the fortune of starting a wonderful club with people devoted to martial arts, and as of this point am traveling to the middle east not only to teach english, but Martial Arts as well. Hopefully paired together.

And by no means have I stopped practicing, I still do for several hours a day (I kind of have to, if I don't my whole body begins to ache, especially the knees, fingers, and back)

So the journey never ends for me. But when somebody refers to you as a master, when unaware of your actual ranking, whether or not you are a master, that is a point to stop and ask yourself how that title came to be, and whether or not it is deserved in some aspect.

Because to me, a master is someone who is recognized and honored as such. They are the person others turn to for advice in terms of martial arts, and it wont always be people from the same style. They are people who even other masters will speak with respectfully, or as contemporaries, and they are people who plunge into the arts, and are as much the art as they are themselves. And when they are a particularly superior kind of teacher and practitioner, the art they practice is as much affected by them, as they have been made whom they are by it.

I love martial arts, it gives my life meaning, and that's all someone who practices should humble say.