My trainer is teaching me balintawak, but really its a cross of a lot of things, he really loves learning martial arts and i can see hes spent years and years and years on it. His holidays is literally going to countries to learn and try their martial arts really.

But unlike other classes he teaches me in the park (its 1:1 lessons as he stopped classes during covid).

But it got me thinking, what makes a trainer "a professional". Both personally and legally.

I know some areas like boxing or karate they likely have some sort of foundation/club/organisation maybe you can register too?

I guess this is coming up because im learning weapons training now, and we can carry training weapons if there is good rrason too (like for training) but would a police officer see a guy in a park and agree hes a trainer. And to add to that, should i believe him?

I cant deny though, my stickfighting, swordfiighting, fist fighting and grapple work has extraordinarily increased. So i cant deny there is skill there and i am learning.

So i guess what makes someone a professional martial artist teacher? How do you tell compared to someone whose just sat on youtube too much. And should i be worried?