Have you ever studied a art that you kept totally secret?

Question

Have you ever studied a art that you don't even let your students know about? If so what are your reasons?

Answer 1

I don't know, it's so secret that I can't even tell myself about it, unless I kill my self after.

Answer 2

I kept it to myself for a long time, but I taught Frank Dux the dim mak.  Bloodsport was actually a documentary.

Answer 3

A few, actually. Mostly because I've noticed some students I train or train with to develop a cocky attitude... Soke Hatsumi has a great quote: "Always be able to kill your students."

There are of course other reasons: certain instructors not liking when you cross train and the like. I do a pretty good job of keeping the stuff separate that needs to be separate, but my movement changes naturally from the training, so it's probably not a terribly big secret. I guess really that all anyone needs to know is that I love martial arts to figure out that I've trained in others.

Answer 4

Believability, during formative years.

Answer 5

No.  I share all my secrets.  The good students learn to defeat my "bread & butter" and force me to be creative and come up with new stuff to beat them.

James

Answer 6

No, I have always kept an opened mind about checking out other arts and cross training in other arts. I have always encouraged the same thing to my students to really fulfill themselves and their fight game. I started off strictly as a karate kickboxing guy and honestly didn't care much for grappling style arts until I did Judo for a while and that pretty much mad me see I was being rather ignorant and I moved to change that about myself. Which is ultimately what martial arts is all about, discovering your own weaknesses and eliminating them or at least shrinking them down to a manageable size.

The only time I recall ever studying anything that I even considered keeping secret was while I was competitively kickboxing I ran into a guy that was teaching Bushindo Japanese Jiu Jitsu and started doing some training with him. I considered not telling the guys just because of how people are when a whole group is doing one thing and then one person breaks off and starts doing something different. I figured that was what was going to happen there and it did. After a couple of weeks of doing jiu jitsu on the side I told the guys at my gym. The next thing you knew there were beany hat jokes and circumcision jokes flying every where. It was all in good fun, just a bunch of guys talking non sense amongst themselves, but it was annoying after a while. I was always being asked some kind of crazy stuff about whether or not I could still eat pork and how my Jew-jitsu training was coming along and whether the rabi was happy with my progress, that kind of thing. Those guys weren't my students they were my training partners and friends and I wouldn't have felt right hiding it from them either.

Secrets lead to closed mouths and closed off minds, a lack of communication and cooperation.

Answer 7

Yes. I learned the Dim Mak 20 years ago in Miami. I don't tell any of my apprentices unless my master deems them ready.

Answer 8

nope sorry

Answer 9

Not really secrets but things that occur to anyone who has trained for many years(30 +) that you know shouldn't be taught to those with less experience.

It is arrogant for anyone to believe that these "secrets" didn't reveal themselves to anyone but them in time.I have been shown "secrets" by kung fu people and ninja types and found what they were showing I already knew or discarded as useless unworkable bullshido long ago.