muaysyiam

philosophy.

The teaching of martial arts in Asia has historically followed the cultural traditions of teacher-disciple apprenticeship. Students are trained in a strictly hierarchical system by a master instructor: Sifu (師傅) in Cantonese; Shih fu (師父) (Wade-Giles), Shī fù (Pinyin) (lit., master-father) in Mandarin; Guru in Sanskrit, Hindi, Telugu and Malay; Sensei (先生) in Japanese; Sa Bum Nim (사범님) in Korean; Kalari Gurukkal or kalari asaan in Malayalam; Asaan in Tamil; Achan in Thai ;and Guro in Tagalog. The instructor is expected to directly supervise their students' training, and the students are expected to memorize and recite as closely as possible the rules and basic training routines of the school. In the warrior Kshatriya caste of South Asia, organised martial traditions were studied as a part of the Dharma (duty) of the caste. The senior teachers were called Gurus and taught martial arts at gurukuls to the shishyas (students). Some method of certification can be involved, where one's skills would be tested for mastery before being allowed to study further; in some systems, there may not be any such certifications, only years of close personal practice and evaluation under a master, much like an apprenticeship, until the master deems one's skills satisfactory. This pedagogy, while still preserved and respected in many traditional styles, has weakened to varying degrees in others and is even actively rejected by some schools, especially in the West. Throughout Asia martial arts were practiced as can be seen in the art, history and current traditions in Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), and the Philippines. In many countries local arts like Te in Okinawa, Kenjutsu and Ju-Jutsu in Japan, and Taekyon and Soobak in Korea mixed with other martial arts and evolved to produce some of the more well-known martial arts in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries like Karate, Aikido, and Taekwondo