In martial arts movies, the student must submit fully to the master and to the structure of the particular discipline the master teaches. Once the young person does so, the wisdom and power and even freedom of that structure gets into the student's head and heart and body. In due time, the young person is certified, step by step, into the levels of mastery. The weight of hundreds of years of tradition, the insight of hundreds of teachers, are codified into the instruction, and further into the being of the student.

What does the student contribute? Submission, desire, growing strength of character, persistance, bravery, eventually creativity and insight. Anything from her own experience? Yes, whatever allows her to commit to the progression of lessons and workouts, but no, nothing that influences the structure of the form itself, as far as we can tell. The tradition is a river that runs through each practitioner, bigger than each one and not much changed by having this cork bobbing along.

The final scenes of the films are always moving -- violent, but inspiring, with all the persuasive audio and visual tools of cinema turned toward a focus of uplifting emotion. A young person has submitted to something greater than herself and has grown in the process. [Finally, she is able to kick the bad guy in the face, or someting just as good!] The sound track tells us how to interpret the final kick -- it is a triumph of the human spirit.

And maybe it is. Yet in writing this account I find myself resisting the erasure of the student's knowledge and experience, as far as the martial art form is concerned. It is here that the pedagogical model of these films seems most dangerous, most satisfied with the authority of the tradition, at a time when we need people who can involve themselves in the inevitable reshaping of modern life. So that final uplifting emotion, linked to submission and violent triumph, doesn't satisfy, no matter how much it excites the audience.

We who are teachers should be careful about turning to Hollywood for lessons in pedagogy.