The Man on the Mountain

Today I've spent my time trying to figure out a suitable last name for the SCA.  Originally, we went with a name that means "from the mountain", because it was a long night of drinking and everyone agreed it fit me best.  Not because I lived on the mountain, but for another reason altogether.

I am, was, and have always been; the man on the mountain.

Not in the sense of altitude, but isolation from what I am and do.  I am stuck, far away from others like me, if there even are others like me.  Various points:

When my friends wanted to start training in martial arts, I was far more advanced than they were, so I was simply put in the position of teacher.  When I wanted to join the SCA for heavy list, I was far more advanced with swords than my friends, so I was put in the position of teacher.  When I chose to take up fencing, I was alone, so I trained alone for months, then into years.  After all this time, I finally have friends who fence...

... and I end up having to teach.

When you're the only one who does what you do, you have two choices; be alone with it, or show it to others.  Yet, it will always come down to that problematic issue of "in order for them to actually stand beside me, I must spend years teaching them".  I have to spend years instructing others how to fight like me, in order to have someone to fight.

When I finally found a teacher in Tai Chi, I was thrilled, I finally had a place to learn under someone.  I didn't care that he was egotistical, and really, a poor teacher.  After years of being a master, I could finally be the student I had wished to be.  I absorbed this style like it was a part of me.  In a single year, I moved from being the new guy in class, to one of the most advanced. (Rankings were: less progressed students stood in the back, and worked their way forward as they learned more of the style and form, in a year, I went from knowing nothing, to literally being ahead of the students who had been there for years).

I was also better at practicality, and I took to the sword in a manner that shocked each instructor.  I was then told the program was ending, and they had changed the price to five times what it was... and expected me to pay the upgraded price for the months I had been there.  I did not return.

There has been no one else I can train under in Tai Chi.  I live too far, or they do not practice.  I find myself constantly removed from instruction.  I am good at this, but I find that I can never be better.

In a world of students, I'm the one called master, and it's frustrating.

I've not given up, but it's still hard to look at the world of people who just seem to stumble over people who can show them what they want, and be the man who gets to watch.