Continuing the Art

My martial arts teacher and I had a discussion a month ago. It was about what would happen if there were no one to take on a martial school and the reigning masters all died. He was of the opinion that the skills could still be recreated from the writings and videos of those who came before. Plus, there would be those born with a natural aptitude for these skills, and then they could help bring about the evolution of a style that's similar to, if not greater than, the extinct school's.

I had the opinion that in the Chinese martial arts, there is a lot that depends on training and learning from others. Push hands, sparring, drills, all these have to be taught by a teacher; applications have to be practiced against cooperative and resisting partners alike. We can't rely on the chance that some Messiah will come who will resurrect the art - he might never come. Because of the curse of knowledge we can't be sure if the masters' writings will be able to give us a proper education beyond the absolute basics. Pictures of stances don't show the progression between those stances. Videos may not be able to properly display the angle, distancing, and relative position of the body parts; clothes would obscure the movement of the muscles; and videos definitely do not display the intention that must be behind every movement. And that's all without taking into account that the Chinese martial artists are notoriously deceptive about their practices. 

There is so much you don't know you learn while training with your teacher. If these things are not passed on physically, through interaction, it's doubtful that your skill won't get into a rut. This is another reason why I've come to distrust distance learning programs for the martial arts. You can learn some postures and drills, but eventually one will need to seek real-time correction and testing to progress.

But this begs the question, once one has become a master, how does one advance his skills? My teacher told me, the master must raise students of his own, who will then practice with him. This is another reason keeping secrets is detrimental - if you never help anyone to equal you, you'll have no one to practice the most advanced drills with.