It's common knowledge among advanced martial artists you can't teach yourself MA's, however, can you become a?

Good question. My view is this.... I think that the old masters might have been able to produce a student that became a master. this is because training was more often, longer, and more in-depth that 99% of what is available today. Today that is not likely. I feel to become a master requires that you receive a very high level of training, and develop things to that level. I know that like you I have learned much by teaching students. There are some things that you may know but not easy to explain. Teaching others requires that you be able to demonstrate and explain. Often this has forced me to think about things that I took for granted before. In teaching students since 1973, I have found that the students that develop the highest level of understanding, technique, fighting, ....etc., are the ones that began teaching at some point.

But I must bring up something else.... A master is not someone that has reached a certain rank. That misunderstanding has been around for a long time. By the old standards the Japanese required that a student be at least 4th degree black belt, have many years of teaching experience, and have developed an exceptional understanding, and ability to teach. Then if the organization head or style head wants to, they can issue the student a Shihan title. Most organizations require the minimum rank for this to be 5th dan, but a few will issue it at 4th dan. NO one is a master without it being issued in writing from the organization. No one under 4th dan is ever a master. The Japanese and Okinawans do not give everyone a title because they reach a certain rank. In the U.S.A. many schools automatically start calling someone

Sensei, Shihan, ...etc. because that person reached a certain rank. That is totally wrong by traditional standards. The Korean styles borrowed the rank system that the Japanese were using. But they have strayed even further from the old standards. I often hear4 someone comment that their friend is a4th dan now, so he is a master.... Wrong!

EDIT:

I'm with Jim R on a statement he made. Styles of martial arts did not come suddenly into existence being created by one person. Fighting techniques evolved, were added to, and refined for centuries. Eventually someone created a set curriculum, and gave it a name. After a few generations people just came to accept them as legitimate styles. All of what we call styles today are built on the studies and experience of many people before a style came about.

....

"I do not believe it is "impossible" to teach oneself a martial art per se."

Basically, you would have to create your own system and techniques from scratch. Which did happen, otherwise where did all the techniques and secret stuff come from in TMA? Somebody came up with it. And somebody taught them, and then there was somebody before them.

But it's like the number of idiot savants and geniuses around that can produce results. Not going to find them in a crowd.

"One has to be a genius and far above and beyond the norm to possibly make that level of progress"

They also need time, not simply capability. Time, motivation, and capability. That is the trifecta. If they're working, no. If they lack the capability, they will soon lose the motivation. If they lack motivation, the other two don't even matter.

"but that some one that made progress was a genius and he passed it along to the next generation"

I don't think he was necessarily a genius. All he needed to do was to find "what works" in a fight and then perfect it. Then backwards engineer his own technique and find out how to apply the principles to something else. To backwards engineer something requires intelligence. But he could just be a good fighter, whether through luck or instinct, passed it on to a student and that student was the genius.

Given human conflict was all about death being omnipresent and life being cheap, there were plenty of chances to "test" who has the real goods on application and theory.

On being self taught, I believe it is important to make a distinction between teaching yourself based upon written or graphic instructions from teachers, online or indirectly, and attempting to innovate everything yourself from the ground up (reinventing the wheel). Since humans absorb information, they are never in a situation where they lack previous experiences or references. So being self-taught essentially just means you are doing the majority of the innovation and refining yourself. Rather than being handed the solution already.

Thus for a person that wishes to teach themselves a fighting system, they would necessarily have to go to the roots of where it all came from: violent conflict. A person with experience in violent conflict can indeed use those experiences as a base to innovate something else. But someone without such experience, direct or indirect, could not craft something that would be workable. You see this often as the difference between book learning and on the job training. Somebody has a theory vs somebody who is working the application.

I think it is very realistic for a beginner or inexperienced person to learn some basic ideas in H2H. But a complete system is not something they can create absent fundamental experience and help.

I am far from a master, but I have quite a bit of experience. I learned so much about what I had already learned when I began to teach. Every student has questions that make you think, and as time goes on you realize things you were already taught. Sometimes you see it in a new light, and sometimes you can spot variations, or even direct applications you had not considered, all from interacting with students. They make you (or should) find answers to stuff you can not answer off hand, and you must give full concentration. This all helps with your personal development. It may be possible to to become a "master" without students, but I think you need both a teacher, and students to truly master any martial art, or even to master yourself.

I think you will find teaching frustrating, demanding, informative, enlightening, fun, and productive. I wish you well, good luck teaching.

J

edit: I think another misconception that is at work here is to assume that these things we call "styles" are each the invention of one person. That is simply not the case. Each and every one of them developed over lifetimes, and were contributed to by many, to finally become what they are now. Or someone "borrowed" some from here and some from there and created a conglomeration of techniques. Usually this is a washout too, but sometimes someone (Funakoshi Sensei for one) blends things and gets it right. No proper and complete style is ever the invention of just one man/woman. Period.

This would be one of the rare occasions I disagree with Callsignfuzzy. I see the term master pretty much the same way I view bowing. More a difference in culture, definition wise that is.

I know there would be a lot of the basics of grappling and striking I would have never really looked into if my coach had not ever moved me into the position to help the beginners.

I'll leave the tradition to the traditionalist about who can be what but I know that sometimes to truly learn you have to teach... I didn't like that idea for the longest of times

Let me preface this by saying I hate the term "master." It either implies perfection (impossible as a human achievement) or indicates a superior-subordinate slave relationship, which I object to on any level.

But I will say that being a teacher makes you a better practitioner. You have to reexamine your techniques, strategies, and concepts, and find different ways of explaining them. It requires you to pay attention to detail in the techniques and translate that detail to your students. Also, having someone new try to figure things out can offer up its own insight.

ISDS,

Personally, I don't accept that you can't teach yourself martial arts. I only accept that you need to understand the canvas with which we all work, the human body.

1. All martial arts systems were developed by someone who either had no previous knowledge of martial arts or developed their own style based on some prior (not necessarily martial) knowledge.

2. Everyone has their own martial arts system since everyone develops their own style based on their knowledge and experience. One need only watch a class of experienced martial artist sparring with one another to understand that martial arts are personal.

3. There are a finite number of striking surfaces on the human body.

4. There are a finite number of vital points on the human body.

5. Apply the finite number of striking surfaces to the finite number of vital points and you eliminate a significant number of possibilities in favor of efficient and effective techniques.

6. The physics of locks, takedowns, throws and traps are invariable as are the means to apply them considering the human body as the weapon for applying grappling techniques.

As far as being a master of a martial arts system, I agree that you can't master a system without either students or a training partner. Master even implies the teacher - student relationship. Perhaps mentor or guide is a better label. Unfortunately, humans are partial to such labels and "master" conveys a certain amount of respect.

I will say that you aren't truly competent at martial art without performing the techniques against active resistance.

People in general tend to romanticize ages past, consider for a moment:

1. No one is starting without any knowledge any more thus no one is really developing new martial arts without prior knowledge or at least they certainly don't need to do so.

2. Basic anatomy and physiology (among many other topics) are taught in public school. A college graduate today knows more about virtually any subject than a genius did 100 years ago.

3. The average Barnes and Noble contains more information about the human body and fighting styles than the sum of all such knowledge 500 years ago.

4. With the knowledge available today the challenge is in creating a more efficient and effective martial art than truly developing a new system.

5. Having said all this, Capoeira, for example, is virtually impossible to learn alone even with all the resources available today. While Capoeira is an extreme example, this applies to any other martial art to some degree. Live practice (full contact sparring) and active resistance are critical to developing a complete martial art.

I am far more impressed by the supposed works of Confucius who, although probably didn't develop a martial arts style may have been the first to systematically record martial arts techniques. Confucius probably was (as classically defined) a genius but not necessarily a gifted martial artist. After all, how many times were martial arts "invented" before the knowledge was recorded and reliably taught to the next generation? Joe Rogan is attributed with stating that "Fighting has evolved more in the past 15 years than it has in the previous 700," which is probably true given the advances in public education and medical science not necessarily just the development of contemporary hybrid systems of fighting.

If I were to develop a fighting system today I would simply integrate knowledge of human anatomy and physiology with biomechanics as well as fight outcomes. In all likelihood, the result would be a list of the "best" techniques for striking and grappling. I would then develop principles for fighting rather than creating a set system of techniques. The result would be a dynamic fighting style that could would evolve with the fighter. This is what traditional systems often sought but hasn't been propagated to current generations.

nice question

i dont think one needs students to become a very skilled martial artist. i think it all has to do with what your idea of a "martial arts master" is. if ur idea involves a great man suddenly settling down and teaching, fulfilling the master-student cycle of martial arts culture...than yeah, maybe. to some, having someone to fully expound knowledge to offers some insite into new ways of interpreting martial arts...you'll feel fulfilled. now if your idea of being great only involves mastery of skills than...i dont think students should come into play or should determine if you're great or not. to me a great martial artists is one who has fully found a way to express his art to himself...the perfect technique, mastery of ones mentality, and spirit has little to do with how many ppl can say they learned from you. now i dont count opening up a school to teach out the equation however...becus that should be a choice and NOT something a martial artist should feel like he should do becus he knows somethings about somethings.

Perhaps. In my experience, I also noticed things when teaching that I would probably never have even thought of, much less considered, if I hadn't later taught a particular form. But then, I also know that not everyone learns in the exact same way, so just because I learn a certain way, it doesn't mean that everyone needs to do it that way as well in order to reach the same level of understanding.