During the 1990's the internet burst forth as a way to interact and learn, so a few industrious schools took the previous correspondence model to the next level by offering online courses. There are very few that do this with live interaction, which is probably due, in part, to the challenge of bandwidth and scheduling madness. The bulk of their revenue, I'd imagine, came from those sales of physical video or subscription to their downloads and streaming video content.
Even so, the amount of content across the world exploded onto YouTube, making the model almost obsolete. That was especially so in the case of virtual schools which did not have a live interactive element. There are a few that survived, including a couple that seem to have a good operational model in place.
While we are a few technological bounds from Matrix-level education, I think the realistic flow of technological growth would be more about the biological pre-dispositioning side than the plug-in type. After all, we are now awake to the idea of smart drugs that allow us to learn faster. By the time we get to the place where the brain can be force-fed information that the body can readily adapt and assimilate, we will probably have run through the gamut of apps and software that telecom companies and marketing companies can impose on us. In fact, the governments will have already taken the model to a place where we probably should NOT go to, but what are you going to do? We just have to wait for it to filter down to consumer level use.
As for martial arts lessons, I don't see it staying in the standard modus operandi where we go out to the brick and mortar on the school's weekly schedule. Life is too fluid, and each new generation seems less likely to want to adhere to a schedule set by someone else. Likewise, I don't see it being perpetuated in the realm of video playback in any format, in and of itself. It just loses the mentorship angle, which is too important to any real martial artist who can call himself such.
Let's address those before we go on:
Discipline is one of the key elements to learning martial arts or any other art. Keeping a schedule helps to build that discipline, of course. And it fosters the student's ability to create positive habits on his or her own time building the SELF discipline part of the equation. Time invested has the benefit of successful outcome. Life may be fluid, but even wildflowers keep a schedule. Somehow, this has to be ingrained in the mind of the student, even with the systematic resistance to the limitation. The future training model has to address that.
Video playback may seem like a way to further the mission, but while it provides a way of review or even explanation of technique concept, it pales in comparison to face-to-face interaction with a capable teacher. It does solve the problem of proximity (teacher may be too far away, or you may not be able to travel to the local school with regularity), and it works perfectly as a librarian tool and catalog, and beats the heck out of hieroglyphics, to be sure. Still, the limitations are in the lack of interactivity.
We have all seen the Sci-fi movies where the interactive Artificial Intelligence fails in the face of certain existential questions that were not or could not be programmed into it. Makes me laugh, every time, because I get it. Imagine going to a mentor who gets a critical error because of a question not foreseen during programming.
Onward: So the future (just my humble opinion) of martial arts training is not to be locked into either of those two variations, based on those factors. Where CAN it be heading to, in the near future? What model(s) might there be that would maintain the heart of the martial arts while addressing the changing times?
Who knows tech may come about in the next 100 years or so? Who can say if the world going into another war or governmental change won't effect how we are trying to perpetuate the martial arts, now? Will we be allowed to teach or share information online with students across the world in certain countries, let alone travel to them (war changes geography) to share or further knowledge?
I don't know that, but I do know this: Having gone the route of an autodidact, without a teacher for many years; and having trained substantially in the presence of teachers in Japanese, Chinese and Korean disciplines, I understand the difference in how I have been able to appreciate the information I have received. Add to this the time spent in the company of a multitude of other people's masters and students near my own level (some below and many above), and my perspective is broad. Couple that with time spent teaching students at different levels and of different mindsets, and I would say I am just a little more open minded about how we might proceed in the mission of proliferating martial arts.
That is not saying I am more or less awake than any other martial artist. It is simply saying that I know change is afoot. I think I can wrap up this topic in the next entry. For now, I think I have gone into near novel status with this post, so I will bid you a fond see ya' later until then.
As for martial arts lessons, I don't see it staying in the standard modus operandi where we go out to the brick and mortar on the school's weekly schedule. Life is too fluid, and each new generation seems less likely to want to adhere to a schedule set by someone else. Likewise, I don't see it being perpetuated in the realm of video playback in any format, in and of itself. It just loses the mentorship angle, which is too important to any real martial artist who can call himself such.
Let's address those before we go on:
Discipline is one of the key elements to learning martial arts or any other art. Keeping a schedule helps to build that discipline, of course. And it fosters the student's ability to create positive habits on his or her own time building the SELF discipline part of the equation. Time invested has the benefit of successful outcome. Life may be fluid, but even wildflowers keep a schedule. Somehow, this has to be ingrained in the mind of the student, even with the systematic resistance to the limitation. The future training model has to address that.
Video playback may seem like a way to further the mission, but while it provides a way of review or even explanation of technique concept, it pales in comparison to face-to-face interaction with a capable teacher. It does solve the problem of proximity (teacher may be too far away, or you may not be able to travel to the local school with regularity), and it works perfectly as a librarian tool and catalog, and beats the heck out of hieroglyphics, to be sure. Still, the limitations are in the lack of interactivity.
We have all seen the Sci-fi movies where the interactive Artificial Intelligence fails in the face of certain existential questions that were not or could not be programmed into it. Makes me laugh, every time, because I get it. Imagine going to a mentor who gets a critical error because of a question not foreseen during programming.
Onward: So the future (just my humble opinion) of martial arts training is not to be locked into either of those two variations, based on those factors. Where CAN it be heading to, in the near future? What model(s) might there be that would maintain the heart of the martial arts while addressing the changing times?
Who knows tech may come about in the next 100 years or so? Who can say if the world going into another war or governmental change won't effect how we are trying to perpetuate the martial arts, now? Will we be allowed to teach or share information online with students across the world in certain countries, let alone travel to them (war changes geography) to share or further knowledge?
I don't know that, but I do know this: Having gone the route of an autodidact, without a teacher for many years; and having trained substantially in the presence of teachers in Japanese, Chinese and Korean disciplines, I understand the difference in how I have been able to appreciate the information I have received. Add to this the time spent in the company of a multitude of other people's masters and students near my own level (some below and many above), and my perspective is broad. Couple that with time spent teaching students at different levels and of different mindsets, and I would say I am just a little more open minded about how we might proceed in the mission of proliferating martial arts.
That is not saying I am more or less awake than any other martial artist. It is simply saying that I know change is afoot. I think I can wrap up this topic in the next entry. For now, I think I have gone into near novel status with this post, so I will bid you a fond see ya' later until then.
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