Life In 19x19

Phoenix wrote:I've been taught movements in the martial arts with the purpose of seriously harming others.
...
I've been in dangerous situations where my skills might be needed and every single time I've managed to defuse the situation without violence.

That is great and avoiding fights is always a good philosophy. I am also well aware how self confidence can help in coming to a non-violent conclusion. This doesn't change the fact that people who can and actually do apply all those "self-defense" techniques that end with the attacker stabbed by his own knife or with a broken neck will be in serious legal trouble in almost any country of the world. But most often what martial arts teachers teach isn't put to a test because the pupils live in nice middle class neighbourhoods anyway or running away is often more convenient or one can sort out the conflict otherwise or weapons rapidly change the situation ... that is most often these education remains theoretical.

This is completely different with Go, if we may come back to the original topic. Real fights aren't a rare exception, but every single game is one. It doesn't matter at all whether the technique isn't executed perfectly in the first game you try it. In fact perfectionism and falling back to "standard moves" you feel comfortable with is one typical mistake that holds people back in Go. All teachers I know encourage people to try the new moves they learn as soon as possible - even if it doesn't work out perfectly at first, if they mess up the follow-up whatever. You can't fully understand without trying, so you have to try before fully understanding.

And of course I have seen people teach rubbish to weaker players, not on purpose but because they didn't know better, but the pupils will constantly put it to test in their own games so I very much doubt there will ever be a market for watered down "ambiguous" Go knowledge.

Of course Miyagi is fictional--it was just to make the idea vivid.

I do not know if the general idea is valid or not. I found it attractive, because I know that I have the tendency to try and rationalize what I am learning, and decide which portions of it are worthwhile, and which are not. In my calculus class, I read ahead and used derivative formulas on quizzes where I was supposed to have applied an approximation method. In that same class, I remember stumping the teacher with a shortcut I used: he said it seemed wrong to him but he couldn't demonstrate a problem with it (of course, the real way to handle it would be to ask for a proof that it was ok, but this was still high school). Similar things happened in a few later classes.

Now, I want to say my curiousity and such was good for me. But I know that there were times I didn't do enough of the work that my teachers wanted me to do.

hyperpape wrote:I have the tendency to try and rationalize what I am learning, and decide which portions of it are worthwhile, and which are not.

I believe this happens with bad teachers, you feel the insecurity of the teacher and start to distrust him and judging his teachings... while you might spot some of them you are most likely not concentrating enough on what you should learn. (At least this is my experience: My math grades dropped from A to D in a year I was busy hating the teacher and only recovered with a new teacher the following year.) This can be inevitable in the education system, but why on earth would you encourage this by hiding your Go teaching among unimportant chores? In my experience good teachers give their pupils to someone else when they feel they can't teach them anymore and good pupils try to learn what their teacher teaches them.

If that were true, then I have only ever bad teachers. But that's not the case.

tapir wrote:[...]or running away is often more convenient[...]

That's my biggest problem with self-defense classes. People go to these things, learn a few very situational moves, then come out thinking they can defend themselves. When they do get in a bad situation, of course, they get hurt or worse. You don't learn to fight in two weeks.

My own self-defense class would have two modules: how to spot danger and how to run really fast. Most of the time there's no reason to fight that outweighs the risk of losing your life.

hyperpape wrote:I found it attractive, because I know that I have the tendency to try and rationalize what I am learning, and decide which portions of it are worthwhile, and which are not.

Ahh... Student Knows Best Syndrome. It's a pandemic.

It's difficult to trust a teacher to the extent that you follow their guidelines blindly. Often we think we know what's good for us and what won't help us as much. It's important to remember, though, that the reason you're seeking a teacher is because this is either a new field, or you acknowledge the teacher's superiority in this matter.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. I tend to be a smartass when it comes to learning from someone, and I have a good sense for my own learning style and how to make progress in a system, so it's worked well for me. The important part is that the teacher knows what your own plans are, so they can adapt and the relationship can benefit both of you, instead of working against the current.

I have noticed something like this in my time programming. When I started out, I had to look at every different type of command differently, and eventually I just was able to understand the entire system intuitively, now it seems like the most logical thing in the world, I have no memory of anything in between, it just sort of happened. Humans are designed to find patterns in the noise, so much so that we do it even when they aren't there (hence misconceptions and bad habits). This is how we learn things like how to speak, and other intuitive things like how to ride a bike, so it makes sense that it is a learning method that could be applied to other parts of life.