Yes and I will relate one story. I had a young student early in my teaching career named James who was 13. I had the base contract and taught the children's and adult classes on base and James being small and frail also had cerebral palsy and would ride a three wheel type bike to class during the warm weather months. He basically pedaled that bike with his one strong, working leg. He was a dedicated, hard working student and really wanted to be able to move about and do things as well and just like everyone else. He of course struggled with anything and everything of a physical nature but that never really stopped him from coming to class or always having a positive attitude.
I have said before in this forum and I will say it again now. People born with physical handicaps or health issues of some kind who get up and face life every day with a smile and the will to try in spite of those things are real warriors. I doubt I could do that as well as I have seen many of them do this.
That has happened many times. But probably not in the way your question seems to be asking. Anyway, I have had students profoundly change me when years later I hear from them and they are thanking me for training them. Several have told me stories of them having to use the skills they learned from me. One student that I did train became an instructor too. A few years later he came to visit and told me of one of the students he taught. His neighbors son was in the military and home from time to time. My student trained him when he was home. While he was temporarily at Ft. Gordon Georgia.In his oof time he trained with a group on the base that did BJJ. One of the Gracies was in the area and dropped by the class unannounced. He worked out with the group and sparred each one there. Everyone was defeated in a matter of a minute or less. That is except my Student's, student. He went over 5 minutes with Gracie. He almost had Gracie. He was taking him down but Gracie was able to counter and make him submit. After class Gracie talked with him and asked him what he had studied. When told that it was mostly Kempo Jutsu and some Japanese Jujitsu, Gracie, said, "Oh, that makes sense. What we do is done mostly as a sport. what you study is for self-defense and is designed to maim or kill an attacker". My student came to tell me about this as soon as he heard it. Wish knew which Gracie it was and exactly when this happened. As best as I can remember it probably happened between 1993 and 1996....
EDIT: This has turned out some answers as I expected it would. I knew a few here would be more interested in trying to call my story either a lie or dubious. I would not have told it if I did not believe it was true. The student that told me was someone I trust to tell the truth. The student that sparred the Gracie was someone I had met before all this happened. I was impressed by him as a person. I do not believe that he lied. But anyone reading is free to believe what they want. It changes nothing as far as I'm concerned.
Note: I did not say that the Gracie involved ever said that what they did was Only a sport. I said that he said that it was mostly a sport. Be careful how you read things. Saying mostly and saying only are two totally different things. I don't appreciate people twisting my words by interpreting them differently than I wrote them.
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OK...I gotta see what KW thinks of pugs comment
Here's my question: Why do people think that because they lost to someone from a different style that the style they practiced now sucks? Are they that delusional to think they were good enough to determine whether or not the style they practiced was viable? 2nd degree black belt in TKD, or any art, means squat. You just got past the basics and you're now one step ahead of second. Secondly, I'm willing to bet most of these TKD black belts that get wooped were part of WTF schools where there's virtually no grappling of any kind to apply to matches be them sport or actual fights.
There's my rant for the day.
And, no, sir, I've never had a student that's changed my life. Or a colleague for that matter.
EDIT: It was a general thought I had and so I'll ask the masses. I don't answer to you
EDIT: Speak for yourself. It's not my fault your TKD instructor failed to teach you any adequate grappling skills. You had to rely on your wrestling (which isn't bad).
What I've learned from people I've taught and train with is people are the wild card that determine what's effective and what's not. In my battalion we have a lot of wrestlers. One of them was number one in Nevada (wish I knew the level...I think there are different levels). I beat him...using my pathetic TKD. Me...a TKD guy...which apparently is a useless piece of crap art, beat a wrestler who had been doing it for most of his life. This was last year actually making him a sophmore in college at the time (he's a junior now). No hitting. No kicking, poking, tickling, scratching, headbutting, punching etc. Straight up grappling. I got him with a guillotine.
So, yes, I've learned a lot. I've learned it's not the style, it's the person. YOU lost to the BJJ guy. TKD did not just as the guy won the match, BJJ did not. He used BJJ and you used TKD (with some wrestling). He got the better of you and won. Your skills weren't on point at the time. You lost. You did. Not the style(s) you used. You did. So...get over it.
EDIT: Your lesson, sir, is your lesson. Just as mine is mine.
OMG GREAT QUESTION :) great to see a different question
I think our students can be our greatest teachers if you can just keep your mind open, especially the children. We can learn so much from children, stuff that as we get older we forget and sometimes when we just let the children show us the way it can be truly inspirational.
There has been a few students but there was one guy who i taught for a while, he was only new to martial arts and wanted to try something that everyone said he couldn't do. I completely understood this and took a shining to him because i am deaf and people told me all my life i couldnt do things, but i made a point of proving everyone wrong. So i understood where he was coming from.
The man i am talking about is currently a 3rd degree white belt and i still like to go back and check on him and the other students when i visit back to my home town. But what made him so unique was that he wanted to learn GJJ and he had no hands. I honestly thought it was impossible as GJJ grips and hands are what most people consider essential.
This guys courage and perseverance made me realize any one of us can achieve anything if we just put our mind to it. he was inspirational. It was such hard work for him and has taken him a very very long time to get to where he is now. he modified and changed sweeps and submissions to suit his needs and he spend hours upon hours on the mat. He attended classes both day and night and even stayed back with people after class trying to perfect what he could. It was amazing to watch. He use to ride a modified Harley to training as well and he was a real inspiration.
Another student who has profoundly changed my life is my husband but that is an entire different kettle of fish because no one could have the impact on my life that he has had.
EDIT> @pugpaws - with all due respect that story is probably every single part true, but there is not a Gracie on the planet that would say what they do is only a sport. NOT one. firstly none of them train it solely as a sport because even Helio has used it in self defense in a bank robbery. and secondly because the entire family is too egotistical to say that their style is only a sport. This is the difference between GJJ and BJJ.
While I learn from my students which helps in my own progress I can't say that any of them changed my life profoundly.
However, when I did start martial arts I have to say I had several "older" (senior) students who did make a huge difference in my life.
The first one was my Karate teacher's senior peer student. My teacher was big and strong as an ox and could not relate to me and my 125#. He got really frustrated with teaching me and finally one night pawned me off to his senior fellow student as not being teachable and me not "getting it". Long story short from then on my martial arts took off much to the embarrassment of my now former teacher.
I can say the same in Kung Fu of one of my 'older' Kung Fu brothers and one 'older' sister who both were instrumental in my development and always stuck up for me and made sure I was learning.
Indeed I have been moved and changed by a couple students. In particular a student I had when I was an assistant instructor. She had a lot of trouble sparring and would not unleash herself at her opponents. She seemed not to want to hurt them even in the smallest way. It took about a year before I could convince her to let loose and practice more realistically. I finely convinced her she was not helping her work out partners from holding back. In fact by holding back she might be putting them in danger if they were to need to use their training in a self defense situation. As time passed she got to be one of our best students. She left to move to another state. About a year after she left she made the front page by beating the crap out of a serial rapist in Philadelphia. He escaped but she blooded him up enough for the cops to identify him. I realized in a more certain way that what I teach is important and not to take it lightly. Two things were driven home to me by her example. How your students train is important and you never know which one may need it to save their life of the life of another.
JW indeed not a year goes buy that some student does not make me feel that what I do changes lives for the better. It is my sole motavation for continuing traning when I'm feeling low.
I can't say that any student has changed my life profoundly. But I can say some have motivated me to continue to teach. Some return and tell the new students about when they trained with me and others and how the training has helped them. Knowing that my students have learned something that has kept them from being a victim or has given them the confidence to accept other challenges has impacted me, but not changed me.
Yes, by several of them.
And in surprising ways.
Suffice it to say that I have learned much from the students I have taught.
And, like pugpaws2, several of my students have thanked me for their training because it enabled them to handle situations they didn't think they would have handled so well without it.
My best claim to fame is 3 different female students who have told me over the years that training they received enabled them to prevent being raped.
If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, it validates all the effort and time I have invested over the years.
I don't know if you could call it "profoundly changed", but I was very impressed by a student I once knew. This guy started in my school when he was about 12 years old. His family was not well to do and money trouble was a constant problem so he could not attend regularly. There would be stretches of weeks and even months before he came back. However, the thing about him that impressed everyone and not just me was that even after a prolong absence, he never forget anything he was taught. It was obvious he keep training and when he was in class it was a very rare thing to have to correct him more than once. I can't remember anyone else in my life I can say that about including myself.
His family moved away to another state about 7 years later and we did not see him for another 4 years when one day he showed up at the school having graduated from college and just gotten hired by a Fortune 500 company. He came to visit the old neighborhood of his childhood and dropped in to see us and he trained with us that day and he STILL remembered everything he was taught.
He started out poor, but he was a success before he became successful.
Yes. I've actually got sucked into thinking that all styles were equal when I was around blue belt level in TKD. I used to think this despite my watching the stand up arts get slaughtered by grapplers in the UFC when it was still style vs style. Why did I believe such nonsense? Because I really admired one of my peers for his insight and his knowledge.
But to make a long story short, I met a BJJ blue belt when } was in the military. He claimed TKD sucked. So me, as a 2nd dan, versus him, I thought this was my chance to show him. I thought I wouldn't be like all the other guys in the UFC. But let's just say I lost very badly and I was delusioned to think I could do any better. In fact, my wrestling backgeound was the only reason I didn't get subbed instantly, but still did.
But the guy was cool about it and started to introduce me to BJJ and he worked out with me. After he showed me the error of my thinking, we became really good friends.
@Sev: do you think I gave every detail of how I came to the conclusion that I did? Grow a pair of balls and just ask me if you're curious instead of pretending its some general thought you had.
And I'll save you the suspense: KW will think what I think. And that is this is just a story. No offense to pugs but it's a story that he didnt even witness himself, doesn't even know which Gracie or when. Not a very compelling reason to change anyone else's mind.
Edit: Oh right.. a general thought you had that was completely independent from my story, right? I suppose it's just coincidence that your "general thought" includes details from my story. lol I can now say it's not at all surprising you haven't learned anything from a student or a peer.
Edit2: Shae brings up an interesting point as she knows her stuff and the Gracies. Fact of the matter is, with all due respect to pugpaws (and I know he didn't mean for this to be some defensible story), the fact is, I have no reason to put too much stock into the story personally. Because the facts are:
1. I haven't seen the fight.
2. Pugpaws who is telling the story hasn't seen the fight.
3. The person who told him the story hasn't even seen the fight.
It's all based on some student, who told his teacher, who in turn told his teacher (pugpaws), who then shared the story on here. And why should anyone take this seriously?
Sev: cool story... yep, I'm really into stories, can't you tell? And I am speaking for myself. Possum asked a question and I answered it. If you don't like the lesson I learned, well tough.
I mean a student of yours, or, a peer student. If so, in what way?
