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Drawing inspiration from an essay by Gerald Berreman, I use Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphors to analyze the interactions I experienced in my ethnological fieldwork in Kerala (India). As Goffman points out, the researcher and the people she meets on fieldwork tend to take interaction codes for granted, until a disruption reveals some implicit assumptions. Before going to Kerala, I was forewarned about the martial arts masters’reluctance on sharing their knowledge, and about the importance of gaining their trust. Hence, on the first months of my stay in the martial arts ( kaḷarippayaṟṟụ) school I avoided asking questions, and let the master decide on my advancement. On the contrary, the master and the school’s staff took for granted the fact that I was there to quickly learn the martial art, come back to Europe, and teach it. Contrary to my assumptions, they regarded that as desirable. Just their reactions to a ’faux pas’ on my part allowed me to recognize the mutual representations that shaped our interactions, and opened my eyes on a politics of transmission that I had not considered before.