I studied Tae Kwon Do (Korean) for three and a half years and decided it wasn't for me.  I started studying Isshin-ryu (Okinawan) under Joan Calvert in 1993 and found a style more suitable to my build and priorities.  In 1999 I began training under Jonathan Exaros in Horsham PA. 

Not everything is what it seems at first glance

I owe my exponential learning of the last few years to Mr. Exaros.  His vision, teaching, and guidance for our Kai has made us strong and capable karateka and opened our minds to new ideas.  It truly takes a great man and confident teacher to allow their students to learn from others and continue to guide us down the path.                              

            Domo arrigato Sensei,  Steve Jamison

Sometimes, your teacher is telling you what you need to know, but you just don't hear it.  Then another teacher teaches the same concept and the light turns on like the sun.  Everyone's brain is wired differently and sometimes things need to be said differently to sink in.   By cross-training with a number of teachers and styles the most important thing I have learned is how to learn what the teacher is not specifically teaching and to hear what they are not saying out loud. 

The one truth I have come to realize in the last 15 years is there are no bad styles.   All the basics for effective defense exist within any given style.  Whether or not your teacher knows them and passes them along, where the schools priorities lie (i.e., sport or defense,)  and whether or not you have an open enough mind to see them is the difference between thinking all you have is a hammer, or realizing you have both a hammer and a gun. 

This keys in with a story (a true one at that : ) Arcenio Advincula-sensei has related.  A Marine jumped into a fox hole with four or five enemy soldiers in it.  Without thinking, the Marine bludgeoned all of the enemy soldiers with his pistol before they could fire a shot.    The point being, it's good to have a gun, but you may not have the opportunity or the presence of mind to use it so you had better practice with the hammer end too.

In a conversation I had with Sherman Harrill-sensei, the truth came to me suddenly, "I feel like I had a gun in my hand and all this time I was driving in nails with it, and now I know I can turn it around and shoot with it too."  "The shame of it is," he replied, "some people will spend decades driving in nails and never look beyond that."

For a while we trained some of the curriculum of Patrick McCarthy-sensei in his Koryu Uchinadi system   I found it to be an excellent resource for the understanding and analyzing the kata in our own style. What I came away with was a view of the picture on the front of the puzzle box.  All the other pieces I had learned previously now had a place to fit.