Define discipline

About a week ago, I heard a complaint made by a student from another school about my martial arts school. He said that our school is not the place to learn discipline and that it's best to go to his school instead. I'm not one to jump at every complaint made about me, especially if it's not legitimate. I'll take it into account, but I don't let those things bother me. But just in case my students need an idea of how to respond to people who make those comments, this entry gives an answer. Apparently, whoever made the complaint wasn't practicing discipline with his words:

My school does not teach traditional martial arts so it will not have the same formalities. Bowing and lining up in rank order is a fine practice. It's a good visual aid to a form of discipline, but it is not the discipline itself. One major philosophy in our school is practicality, so you will not see these forms like you see in traditional schools. Instead, there is more of an emphasis on personal responsibility. The teacher motivates the students to take initiative for their martial arts training and have the students pursue their own personal goals while maintaining the attitude of mutual respect. Both the teacher and the student work together to reach those goals and concurrently learn how to work with others to reach their goals.

Through the martial arts, students learn to abide by a code of conduct based on respect for the teacher, fellow students, and the art form. This is done through consistent direct communication of what is expected of them, which is all good and fine. But from my experience and observation, when the sensei or coach tells students what to do, and they do it, it's only discipline for that particular activity. The student did not necessarily transfer that discipline to other areas of life. The hope of "do what you're told" is that the habit of doing that activity would transfer to other areas, but that isn't always the case. In fact, for the most part, students become dependent on someone to tell them what to do rather than take initiative to do what's needed for them personally.
(There are those who come to resent the more demanding authority, also.)

"Over-reliance on extrinsic motivation leads to learned helplessness and learned dependence. Learned helplessness is a state in which the individual does not believe that she is capable of influencing important outcomes in her life. The more students’ behavior is determined by others’ directions and external inducements, the more the students will lose their sense of self-determination and self-efficacy" (Ylvisikar, Hibbard, and Feeney, Online).

Only few actually learn to internalize those discipline concepts and transfer them to other areas of life. I guide students to what they need to do and from there, they choose to do it. Instead of just telling them what to do, I take the extra step of letting them know how it applies to other life activities and to persistently persuade them to be more intrinsically motivated. They will choose to do what is demanded of them.

A second point to our method of discipline is that our school does not adhere to Confucian-influenced hierarchy. We do teach discipline, just not in the traditional Asian martial arts sense of the word. We respect the instructor because he is willing to give his knowledge and time to train the student and he is the authority in matters of coaching in the martial arts and various parts of life. In Confucian philosophy, the basis for respecting the instructor has more to do with filial piety, or ancestor worship. People are intuitively aware of a spiritual reality and most if not all cultures are naturally inclined to be superstitious. This means that "spirit" to the Confucian is not just the ideals, essence of philosophy, and personality of a dead person, but "spirit" means the soul, the very life-force of the person that continues on after death. Instead of submitting to authority out of simply respecting them because you seek their knowledge and experience, in Confucian-influenced societies, submitting to authority has more to do with respecting those "spirits", thus keeping order in a collective or else incur the wrath of your ancestors and the government. I have endeavored not to include any hint of Eastern spirituality or even hierarchy structure based on Eastern spirituality in my martial arts philosophy.

The best answer, of course, was made by one of my students:
"You've never practiced with us, so how would you know?"