Reply #22: Um, yes, very bad form

[ForrestGump]

You hear stories about how it used to happen in ancient China, and I have heard stories from the mdoern day but, basically, it's not a good idea to challenge anyone.

Besides, it's conceivable that you COULD beat the teacher - everyone has a bad day, and novices are infamously hard to fight because they're free of being entrained into a certain way of moving and responding....very unpredictable. The key is, as far as fighting's concerned, to find a teacher who can make YOU a good fighter, regardless of how good he or she may be. The two don't necessarily relate.

There's another factor. Certianly in kung fu - and a lot of the Mixed Martial Arts type jeer at this claim - the really key techniques ARE too lethal for tournament use. They just are - for example, certain nerve strikes and certainly things like attacking the throat or the vertebral arteries (nothing 'mystical' about that) can fairly easily make someone rapidly dead. I don't think that a challenged martial artist who's capable of lethal techniues - and many are easily done with barely any training - is going to pull them out to make a point. Also, it's traditionally been the case that you'd really have to prevail against a good teacher before he or she pulls out the juicier, higher-level techniques - these sorts of things have tended to be jealously guarded. You never show them your best stuff until you have to.