The lie…

There is a slippery slope in training that most don’t recognize, and that is bragging about who you train. This goes for anyone – martial art, combatives, health and fitness, firearms, LEO, whatever it may be.
Your reputation is your currency in the training world – and far too often people let marketing to make money get in the way of ethics and morals. It’s human nature to want accolades and appreciation, but it’s also human nature to lie in order to get them.
The best teacher’s I’ve ever known were paid with food because they were poor and taught out of their garage instead of a multi-million dollar facility.
The accolades come when you’re ethical, but they come at a price and that price is the development of patience. I don’t believe in karma, but I do believe in the nature of humans to be inquisitive and to find out when others are lying.
You are you – you are not what you teach. You can teach people the biggest load of crap in the world, but if you are ethical, you stay honest, you are compassionate and forthright, and you love what you do – then I will respect you for you, and everyone should.
Those who have patience, who are ethical, have character, they may wait longer, their road may be tougher, but they never have to look over their shoulder or worry about their Google search results.
They are themselves, being paid in food, sleeping on couches, moving everything around in the garage to teach their students…and sometimes selling everything in their garage to buy the equipment when no one can pay or to help a student out.
Because they love it.
And in the end, they further martial art because they touch souls, and not people’s wallets…and that is the lesson of being a teacher.

-Matt