Martial Edge welcomes contributor Allen Pittman, a man with an exhaustive repertoire of martial arts training and teaching. Lesley Jackson speaks to him about his ideas and methods of teaching.
Allen Pittman is a martial arts encyclopaedia. After starting in Taekwondo at the age of twelve in his home country of America, he began studying Chinese based martial arts called ‘Nei Chia’ or ‘Inner Family Arts’ when he was fifteen. These included Ba-gua, Hsing-I and Tai Chi. From this mixture of arts, he was able to cover a wide spectrum of skills from the hard kicking and blocking of the striking arts with the more softly flowing, internal and holistic style of this Chinese family of martial arts.
During his twenties, Allen travelled to Taiwan to study under several prominent Chinese martial artists, including those closest to Nei Chia, as well as learning Chinese boxing from teachers at the Chinese ‘National Art Academy.’ After enriching his martial arts from the Eastern homeland, Allen returned to teach in Atlanta and Washington, but never ignoring the opportunity to learn variations of his martial arts from teachers around the world. These have been as diverse as fencing, wrestling and Judo where he has further travelled around Asia, India and even Africa to study their rich and unique varieties of martial arts. Allen now currently resides in France where he continues to teach and research the traditions and lore of the East and West, publishing articles and books on a wide variety of martial subjects.
Physical Training Traditions
Allen currently runs and teaches a system he calls, ‘Physical Training Traditions’. This is a holistic system which includes beginning to condition the body which Allen describes as, “the core of our curriculum.” He then extends his students into the branches of traditional martial arts, yoga and healing that derive from around the world. “The qualifications of the teachers [at my school] involved in Physical Training Traditions include at least 10 years instruction under a genuine and authentic tradition as well as other work in arts of healing and training.” He elaborates, “I mean having learned in the apprenticeship mode under a teacher who can prove they actually carry a lineage of teaching from a distinct history and teacher. I do not include here teachers who have invented their own arts, although there is a place for that. PTT does not teach ‘mixed martial arts’. It teaches very specific traditions that are time-honoured and have proved themselves in battle and personal self defence. It does not teach sport karate or kickboxing or combat arts designed for the competitive ring.” This is too an area that Allen has experience in because as well as teaching and practising martial and healing arts, he has worked as a body guard to various clients, including H.H. the Dalai Larma.
Although Allen teaches a holistic and esoteric tradition in martial arts, these are still martial arts in the truly combative sense, where of course their origins derive. “I emphasize the philosophical and tactical aspects of the arts but put the tactical aspects first in the training. Once the student has a handle on the tactical aspect – that is they can do drills with a partner with some understanding – I then begin to introduce the philosophical, religious and esoteric ideas which stand behind any Way or Power. This leads to a genuine understanding of a given Art.” However, Allen is keen to state that, “these arts are not arts of form, they are ‘Tactile Response Arts’. The forms reflect physical applications which come out of physical responses which are trained.”
Teaching for the Student’s Needs
Through this method, Allen has crafted his style of teaching into his own, mixing ideas from both the East and the West. He is not afraid to critique some of the Chinese martial art’s practice of teaching ‘form only’ or of spreading the teaching over a long period of time, to maintain the authoritative distance between teacher and student. “This has resulted in a great deal of frustration and illusion about how these arts work and why they work. Often students are never shown applications or applications are held back to the teacher can maintain the tactical upper hand. This is still the rule rather than the exception. It allows the teachers to maintain mediocre skill and still control the students in the class by physical threat. While this may work in the glandular system of adolescents, for thinking adults who no longer need the boot camp mentality – genuine applications must be taught and drilled with other mature adults who are kind and gracious enough to tolerate the process without abusing one another.”
“Students are encouraged to learn quickly and easily and also encouraged to teach and explore. I teach with the intent of producing happier students, good practitioners and good teachers. And I let them go. But I do like to keep in touch with them because I get pleasure when I hear of their successes in life.”
Allen’s pragmatic approach to teaching martial arts includes doing what is best for his students, rather than what is best for the Art. For example, he encourages students to fit their training around their life, not their life around training and will tailor their training programme around their current stage in life. “I also encourage students to move on if the training does not suit them…This for me is karmic.” Whereby Allen will recommend another martial art to a student if he thinks that will suit their needs more. Although he has extensive experience in the martial arts, he does not demand dictatorial respect from his students, rather he considers them his peers and friends. “I do not run a school with a pyramid social structure.” Allen concludes. “Students are encouraged to learn quickly and easily and also encouraged to teach and explore. I teach with the intent of producing happier students, good practitioners and good teachers. And I let them go. But I do like to keep in touch with them because I get pleasure when I hear of their successes in life.”
Allens latest book ' Walking the I Ching: The Linear Ba Gua of Gao Yi Sheng ' will be available from Blue Snake Books in March
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