So you just got your 2nd Kyu or 1st kyu or even your Shodan and you are asked to teach a class or two for your instructor….what do you do/think? Do you think “Wow, Im not worthy”! or do you think “Holy Bat snacks Batman this is great, Im a senior and get to tell others what to do”! or do you think “Why the heck am I paying for you to teach and you get me doing it?”
All three are common responses to being asked to teach and pretty much all three are wrong!
Being asked to teach by your instructor is not just a honor but it shows that he has faith in your skills as a martial artist to pass on and evaluate the juniors in your club. So the first response of “I’m not worthy” and the accompanying nerves and profuse perspiration and confusion as you begin to panic…well you are the only one thinking you need to do this so stop it! Remember by this time you have been training for about three years minimum and you have seen all your instructors classes and they will have generally given you an idea of what you are going to teach the first few times you do this.
They generally wont just say “teach the whole class for me eh!” and take off out a back door while you stair gapped mouth as to what you are to teach. Most of the time they will Say “hey, can you grab the white belts and go over Heian Shodan”? or “Hey, those guys need a work out on basics, can you do XYZ with them for a half hour”? and that is the start of your journey into teaching. So don’t feel like you are not worthy, think that you are finally worthy of that responsibility…it would not have been given if not for you being ready!
The second issue is the instant ego issue that the second not so modest response brought about. First off being at the front of the class means a few things. One you need to respect those you are teaching, not use your new found responsibility to push people around and hurt them (mentally, physically or emotionally) and it also means that you have the responsibility of passing on what your instructor has taught you. Its not all “IM KING” kind of stuff but being worried that people are getting a good work out as well as learning…big responsibility.
Most of the time your instructor asks for some help it may be a bit of an ego “boost” to you…but keep your hat size the same. Just because you were asked to help out does not make you the leader of the club. One of the reasons I had one of my juniors help me with other juniors was because I had to teach seniors some advanced things and it was above the purple belts head that I was asking to help out. So, just because you are asked to teach, does not mean because you have mastered anything other than the lower level you are asking to teach!
The last one is my all-time favorite when it comes to showing ones character….”pay me or I walk”! Some guys/gals don’t get it. We don’t make a truck load of money here and cannot always dish out cash when we need a stand in. Hell I teach for one of my juniors and never ask for a dime! Its an honor to be asked to teach and aside from that, if you are not into honor and the like, its also a great way to learn even deeper! So, really it’s a continuation of your learning…you still owe your instructor for this if you want to look at it that way.
When I started teaching I was so damn scared it was not funny! I was a brown belt and had been for about 10 years…yah, you read that right…don’t tell anyone however…I hated testing and still do! But I remember it well. I went to a noon time class and Dingman Sensei asked me to take some juniors to the side and show them the basics they would need to get into class….I was knee knocking scared I would embarrass myself or My instructor. I was not always the noisy guy that everyone could hear and blasted my voice over others….In fact I was very introverted and my Karate was kind of the same.
Sensei got me teaching and in within a month I was way better at communicating with others, even made eye contact the odd time and my Karate became more of a study and less of a exercise. Sensei Dingman having faith in me and knowing how much it would help me to come out of my shell and explore Karate really gave me a boost in Karate. I needed a new way of looking at things that teaching offered. I really see it as an extension of my training now.
I often take things I am going to work on in my next class or that I had worked on in a previous class and focus on it at home and try to tweak it and use the new angles I see when teaching to improve on it. I used to just follow what Sensei did in class and teach it the same way, but after a while I began researching more and more, watching sensei with a bit more critical eye to pick up what he was saying and by re-teaching it I ingrained it in me.
So, don’t think you are not worthy of helping out if you are asked, don’t think its an ego trip or power trip if you get to teach a class or two and don’t think of it as “now he owes me” because you help out…its just another way of learning what Sensei has taught you all along and offering up what you got from him to others. It helps make it part of you and give you an opportunity to train your brain and not just your body.
A hundred years ago classes were very different. The instructor would walk around as small groups of students practiced drills, weapons training or did Kata and he would make suggestions, but each student had the responsibility of teaching each other. They would critique and push, prod and correct, adjust and demand of each other while the instructor paced the floor saying “ah, good” or “no faster” and often would never touch a student for months at a time. Each student taught each other and the senior students only would get taught by the instructor.
Just before World War II Karate saw a big change in the way those classes were run. They became more regimented and military in approach with lines of students all being taught by one instructor and everyone doing he same thing. While this was both good and bad aspects to it. The standards went way up and the skills developed as a group. But the individual students did not learn as fast and as deeply because they were not teaching as well as training.
Teaching is a privilege that I take very serious. Its and opportunity to push yourself to learn even deeper than before and its your chance to really get inside a technique that you may only have a basic idea on. But its never seen as the other things that I often see in the clubs I teach at.
Remember Karate is not about ego. Its not about lack of ego or having to much ego, its about doing the best you can when asked in class or leading a class and learning no matter what.
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