Teaching: Content and presentation

Teaching: Content and presentation

                When you teach its important to think of two different things; content and presentation.  No matter how much experience you have teaching if you lose one of these you have lost the whole class!  Now you can come back from the edge and make the class fantastic if you focus on where you lost it, for me its often content…my presentation becomes more important and I get lost…have to regroup and go back to the two points and restart in my head.

                I am going to go over a few points I feel are very important when teaching, not everyone will agree and not everyone will be comfortable with all of these, and some will have other points I don’t even think of.  I have been teaching Karate for about 25 years now and I don’t get it right all the time, I often start off with an idea and kind of meander all over the place mentally and have to pull myself in….Often forgetting I cannot teach everything I want in a one hour class.  I hope that this helps you all realize that what and how you teach are important, but specific points will really give your classes that polish you want.

Introduction

                I have taken the two subjects, split them up and attacked specific bullet points to show my ideas of content vs Presentation…but the truth is it’s not a Vs as much as it is a “AND” kind of situation.  You can be strong in one area and not another and you can be weak in both. The important point is to go over the areas and find your weakness and improve them.

                Everyone has their own way of getting ready for a class, some teach in weekly/monthly themes or others kind of generally always teach one thing.  We all know that the three K’s and testing prep is very important but you need to know when to veer away from teaching this kind of stuff and into more dynamic and complex areas and what group this works best for.

                The fundamental truth however is when you teach you have two areas that you must think of all the time, Content and Presentation.

Content

Selection

                Content selection is based on personal preference, required teaching components (think testing and the three K’s) and personal knowledge/ability and back ground.  An instructor with little back ground in grappling aspects would be foolish to suddenly figure they were going to teach foot sweeps and throws!  Also a instructor who has a horrible time with a specific technique or set of techniques would probably be making a big mistake if they were to decide to teach those techniques in class.

                Your audience is also a major factor in content selection. You are not going to teach a class of children Kanku dai or Jiu Kumite! And you would be losing students if you always selected the same Kata over and over and over again and did not keep it fresh.

                When you select the content be aware of any upcoming tournaments, testing’s or seminars and help your students get ready by focusing on the requirements for each of those upcoming events.

                Lastly, pick something you like, if you hate Empi with a passion or if you really don’t like foot sweeps or are not interested in open hand techniques for some strange reason….dont teach them….your dislike for the subject matter will shine through.

Research

                One of the things I am going to talk about later is “mental/experience regurgitation”. This is the act of just teaching what you learned the last class.  Which is fine if you don’t intend on actually ever teaching unless you have gone to class and you don’t mind being a weaker fabrication of your current instructor.

                What will keep you from being just a carbon copy of your instructor? Research! Go on line, read, Visit video sites to watch Karate and even other arts.  Put some time in to personal development and work and then bring it to your classes.

                Some instructors don’t want students to go outside of them for information, this develops automaton mind sets were you develop a cookie cutter instructor base that boars the hell out people.  Go forth and research, learn new things that even your instructor may not know.  Bring it to the class and even show your instructor.  Growth through research is imperative once you reach black belt, but remember…just because it is different does not make it right or wrong….just different.

Goals and objectives

                Each class you teach you should have a goal in mind, Be it “mae Geri basics” or “ strategy development in Kumite” and some goals may be based on a week or month worth of training.  Strategy in Kumite may be a years’ worth of training!

                You have to have an outcome in mind, and objective of the class and you can build towards it. It’s a process of reverse engineering a class sometimes but you have to figure out what you want the class focus to be on based on the goal, and then how to get to that point in an hour…and in the case of longer term goals you have to find ways to compartmentalize your goals and objectives in steps. 

                Don’t make life complicated by overthinking this one.  My goal for a class may be a stronger front kick or a better front kick. I figure out what stretching has to be done, what strengthening, the steps to a better front kick, what the students have to do each step then we go for it!

Teaching to the lowest common denominator

            The hardest part about teaching is often remembering that some of the lower belts will be lost if you start teaching the intricate hand movements of Kanku Dai…or the use of inside roundhouse kick in a defensive side step! 

                When you are teaching try and keep in mind that you have juniors in the class that have to work on basics and technical work.  Its very important to keep this in mind when planning a class. Now you can have the seniors doing “Mawashi Geri, uraken, Gyaku zuki” as a drill and the Purple and green doing “Mawashi Geri/Gyaku Zuki” while Orange and down do “Mawashi geri” only…this is a great way to split the skills up, but remember…the lost white belt will leave, the black belt can be drilled into the ground doing the basic movements and should love the work out.

                I always advocate lots of basics and fundamental training in a month and one or two seniors classes to push seniors to do homework and improve while still training to the lower students and keeping the shine on seniors techniques.

Keeping it fresh and relevant

                Far to often an instructor gets into a “schtick” and teaches the same thing over and over and over again, normally this happens when a instructor is not seeing improvement or sees deficiencies in a club. For instance if the whole club has issues with a particular move, like a bad round kick, it is normally the instructors fault that they have an issue. A visiting instructor may pick up on this and work the kick to death…but then they come back in three months and see that the same issue exists and work that kick to death again…this becomes “what they teach” when they show up to teach and it gets OLD and the students lose interest in coming.

                Or a instructor just loves doing something, be it a specific Kata….Kata in general, Kumite, bag work or something…And they work that to death!  The students may not like Kata that much and want Kumite, or vice versa. The instructors job is to mix it up, teach things from a new angle and to maintain the “newness” of Karate while dedicating themselves to the testing curricula as well as good training standards.

Making good basics

                A class should start, end and focus the whole time on Good form and good basics.  To often instructors want to teach the fun stuff like sparring and the techniques go in the garbage as they push the students to be in better shape to keep up with sparring, but injuries start to creap in when form is left out of the picture. 

                A good example is kickboxing, students of kick boxing become great at sparring really fast. But they lose form and functional techniques as time goes on. Lots of knee injuries, back injuries and ankle problems come up over time, not because they train harder but because they use poor form and end up hurting themselves while training.

                No matter how advanced you get, no matter what your rank is, your basics are most important and you need to remember that as an instructor, never neglect good form and functional basics.

Regurgitation

                Just teaching exactly what you were taught is a good idea…if you are a brown belt that has no experience teaching! If you however have been around a while and have had your teaching chops tested you should be able to teach freely with out “regurgitation” of the class you just came from or the class you have notes on.

                I have notes from 1980 forwards and often dip into them to try and get and gather ideas for seminars or classes I teach and often go back to the stuff My instructor taught, but I try and put a personal spin on the whole thing and make it easier for me to personalize my classes.

Physical conditioning vs technical improvements.

                Karate training is dynamic and has many different facets that you can look at when training, tones of tools to use and a unlimited number of drills, Kata and twists that you can use when teaching…however what it boils down to is you are either teaching to condition your body or build up technical ability.

                Conditioning is not just running and lifting weights, while it can be, it is the use of drills, calisthenics, impact training and any kind of training that is simply to make you stronger, faster and work on you mostly for physical improvements. Technical improvement is all about the form and function of a movement.  Technical improvement can be Kumite, Kata or Kihon based and it is something that we mostly look at when training.

                Now there are bleed overs, if you work on techniques using Kihon and drills and focus on improving movement and say you are working on Shuto uke/Kokutsu dachi, you will have some conditioning improvements but the class will be more about techniques.

                When you teach juniors the class should be about 60% Technical and 40% conditioning, so mostly building better form and function and using that to condition the body.

                Around Brown belt you should reverse that, more speed and power as well as pushing yourself to do more and letting that improve your form and function.

                When you are teaching keep this in mind and let the class work itself out accordingly.

Making a lesson plan vs winging it.

                Some people live by making lesson plans, and in the beginning it’s a great idea to set up a general lesson plan and stick to it. But you will quickly learn that the lesson plan limits you and is a bit difficult to stick to once you learn to watch while teaching.

                If you have set up a lesson plan for say Juniors and you are working on Oi-zuki but you notice that your plan includes “front knee, stepping while scissoring, punching technical items” but you forgot to say worry about relaxation, back leg or vibration…and you notice that he class is lacking this…will you stick to the lesson plan or throw in an exercise to create relaxation or explain the back leg?

                Also a less often turns from one goal and intent to anther as you are teaching. This allows the flexibility to be creative and to form new class training based on things you just thought up or things you see that are required, you can dig into your memory and find things you worked on with your instructors or find things that you really were fun when you did them and you forgot to throw them into the lesson plan.

                Winging it normally means that you have a basic idea of what you want to do (or not) walk in the door and just start teaching.  Now this is an art form and most people don’t do it very well.  They get nervous and they look unprepared.  This is DIFFERENT from Regurgitation as the subject matter and the content and presentation are all up in the air and not something that you are just running through.  It has its upside and its downside however.  First off you can get lost and have a very disjointed class that has not rhythm and it also gives you freedom to be flexible and address things that need addressing without worry of leaving the written path!

                My suggestion is to write it down and go through it in your head when you first start out teaching, you will know when its time to abandon this approach and get going on winging it and keeping a basic rhythm to your teaching.

Creativity in content

            Creativity is the most important part of content based teaching training.  You can not simply teach the same thing the same way over and over and over again, you have to base your teaching on being flexible, finding new ways to address goals and concepts as well as presenting it differently.  But the other thing that you have to keep in mind other than this is what you are teaching. While you need to be fresh and new, you also have to create and be looking for new things to add to your teaching content other than the three K’s and the curriculum.

                Getting students ready for the next level should be about 60% of your teaching time, 20% should be conditioning stuff to keep them coming back and being fit enough to train…but that last 20% should be fun and new stuff that you are researching and you can introduce to your students. I went to different martial arts to learn things to bring back, I don’t recommend it but with the advent of You Tube you can view different people’s ideas and introduce techniques and training to the club that others are doing.

                I did not have You Tube and the web so I went outside of Karate and learned Joint locks, throws, sweeps and different things to bring to the table to be creative.  For new instructors in this day and age it should be easier to research some unused or unseen training ideas and implement that content into your teaching.

                Remember you are not regurgitating a idea, you are learning a move or principle or something and then presenting it in your way…it’s the new content that will make it fun for students to come out and train. Something I am trying to introduce during seminars.

New stuff vs old stuff.

                When do those students of yours get some new stuff to do and when are they going to be over the basics….well never.  The old stuff or basic teaching of the three K’s is eternal.  Does not matter if you are a Gokyu or a Godan you need to work on basics and basic Kata and three step and 1 step and….well you get the picture.  But you should be teaching new things once and a while to keep them interested.  Other than that the curriculum for testing should show you which basics are needed and when. However, its also important to work with the class and club on building up the curriculum based basics even after they have graduated to a new level. I see many purple belts who abandon doing things they don’t like (yoko geri for example) and they never progress to the next level completely.

                Even a Black belt has to worry about the old stuff!

How much is to much?

                I have been to classes and seen instructors try to get students to do bag work, pad training, kumite, kata, basics, drills, rubber tube training, throws and sweeps, joint locks, partner drills, and Hojo undo (conditioning) all in ONE CLASS….Way way way to much work or one class.  I have also seen instructors try and take a student from white belt to Shodan in two years….Yah, not gonna happen. You need to introduce things in such a way as to enhance the goals and use the training components in a interesting and fun way.

                Also, teaching a whole curriculum level in a month is to much, packing in the essentials in the last month prior to testing is a strain on the student and not fair to them.  Break up the curriculum into three months per level (or more depending on the level).

First month for a white belt is teaching them to Dance through Heian Shodan, learn some “in the air” type things for basics and get down the basics of “this is a kick, this is a punch” and have some fun with them hitting a pad to re-enforce the impact training.

Second month is more dedicated to sharper form in Heian Shodan, more structured and strict basics, some kumite to make it all “seem real” and then some drills and some more impact training.

Third month you need to sharpen up the basics, push the student to know the Kata performance backwards and forwards and be spirited in the basic three and five step kumite.  Add some impact training and Hojo Undo for fun only. Then let them test.

Different levels of course will have different things to work on, but don’t try and cram all their training in to one class, spread it out and introduce a few ideas or techniques every month only.

Use your own ideas and personal experience

                Nothing worse than reading a text book that is flat, dull and “wordy”!  well, one thing is worse…going to a class that is impersonal, the instructor is teaching like they are reading from a textbook and the class is so routine that you get board and your mind starts wandering.

                Use things you learned from your instructor but also add your own subject matter into the mix.  It will make it more fun for you to teach it and much more fun for the students to learn it!

Pick subject matter that interests you!

                I remember one time going to train with a instructor who actually started his class with “I really hate teaching or doing this Kata…but we have to do it”…Wait…what?  Why would you show up to teach something you don’t like teaching?

                Pick subjects you like, not ones you are good at but ones you like. If you hate Heian Sandan get someone else to teach it that likes it!  Bring in instructors that love doing the kicks you hate or the Kumite that you hate teaching.  That is not to say if you cant kick you should not teach kicking, you should be able to coach it and work on improving yourself as well, but you should not teach something you are not passionate about.

                A good instructor likes teaching Karate…period, but a great one knows their limits and what they like to teach and they focus on that stuff and work with others that compliment them. Also, you could be the best instructor in Basics but you really love Kumite…well you know what you will be teaching! Show your passion for sparring and focus on building that into a class, ask others who are much more passionate about other aspects to pick up the slack in those departments.

Presentation

Personality

                Personality is the first thing when presentation of a class comes to mind. I am drawing from Karate and my school day in commenting about this.  The best instructors are those that engage and entertain. They draw you in and before you know it you are pushing yourself to do better and better with out even knowing its work.

                The single worst instructors I have had were impersonal, had a monotone speech pattern because they were board teaching the same things over and over and did not engage you in any way. 

                Now everyone’s personality is different, some people are more introverted than others, you need to realize that you need to draw students into the class and engage them with your personality while pushing yourself to reach out to everyone.  Be personable with your personality, share and push yourself to entertain while building the class….not be a clown, but capture their attention any way you can.

                And to do this you need to relax, nervous instructors become hard to watch, like a train wreck they start off interesting then they just turn to painful to watch as they sink further and further with nervous laughs and long pauses. Remember the students WANT to be there and want to be worked out and entertained mentally and driven physically to improve.

Teaching kids

                Teaching Kids and Adults is going to be the focus of a whole paper coming up so I will make this simple and straight forwards. When you teach kids the most important things to remember are not to talk down to them, bring yourself to their level and teach them with respect! To often I see instructors teach kids and treat them like a burden….who wants to do that. If I had to show up and teach a group of people I did not want to teach…well you can imagine how “entertained” both myself and my students would be!

                Also, respect them. Yes they don’t have your life experience and hey, they are kids. But don’t treat them like dirt and talk down to them or expect them to grovel at the grownups feet.  Show them that you care and you will make this fun and a learning experience and you will have them hooked.  Keep them interested and they will develop a passion that will keep them in Karate a long time.

                Show kids how important and fun Karate can be and you will hook them. Make them feel like they are part of a family and they will stick around, but treat them like a burden, go through boring classes with no “contact” between you two and you will have them skipping off to Soccer or Hockey in seconds.

Teaching adults

                Adults are often way trickier to teach than kids in the beginning because you don’t know their back ground or personality. I say “more Tricky” meaning…”tricky in different ways”. Some people just choose to be cold, easily insulted/offended or have a bad attitude about life in general. Others are happy all the time and can’t seem to be serious even when called for.  Others have attitude issues like issues with authority figures (to much respect or anger towards them) and we have to remember that adults have had a whole life time to color their personalities and we have to figure out how to communicate with them.

                Show respect to them and teach them, encourage them but don’t ever talk down to adults, they are way more likely to pick this up and dislike the approach.  Also, remember that people are more likely to be affected by life cruelty and influences as an adult than a child is. 

The event that most scarred me as an instructor was teaching a self-defense component to a group of students, well mixed and I asked a student to help me demonstrate. I was a 20 year old kid teaching Karate application and the student was a 40 year old women, we were going over “what to do if you are grabbed on the street” and I grabbed my students shoulder to show how to attack…and she flipped biscuits on me.  I totally missed that she was actually not just uncomfortable being in front of class but was starting to recoil and was highly emotionally charged…..she was in fact reliving the night she was RAPED and I had no idea what was going on!

I learned from that to ask permission and find out about students before I assumed I could do things with them. I did not stop demonstrating with ladies….well I did for about two years…but learned from my experience teaching and realized that everyone is different and you have to approach everyone with respect and differently. It was a tough lesson to learn but it really did teach me that you cannot assume you know everyone and how to teach until you learn a bit about them…and in the meantime be respectful of them and consider who you are working with.

Be nervous, but don’t look it!

                Dingman Sensei is my Source for information about Karate and always has been. When I started teaching he was my source for learning how to teach as well.  One thing he told me is being nervous is good, its natural and he had to overcome being a shy and reserved person to teach. Its second hand to him now, but he says that being nervous gives you a bit of an edge! You remember that you have a responsibility and being a bit nervous is your way of showing you take this serious and you will work hard.

                However, its also bad to see the train wreck of a “WAY TO NERVOUS” instructor bumble through things and start to fall apart, hell it can turn from being a bit nervous to being totally lost and shutting down. It can affect your body and I have seen everything from people passing out to people passing gas while teaching because nerves got the best of them.

                Be nervous a little but tell yourself that you have done this before and you would not have been asked to teach if you could not do this.  Then just go out and do it, showing people your confidence…even if you are ready to fall apart. If you start to bumble or get lost, Joke about it and just center yourself and restart!

Use your personality to show your excitement and passion.

                In my life outside of Karate I have had about five teachers that I can say I really really liked and felt that they taught me and reached me on some level.  Two of them were Anthropology teachers, one in high school and one in University.  Both reached out and used their personalities to grab my attention and get me passionate about history and Anthropology. One was a Older Jewish man that was just likeable and fun. The other was a gay lady that was funny and drew you in….nothing in common, different teaching styles, different personalities but both used their skills in communication to bring their personality to the table and used that to teach the often dull and boring subject to a full class and everyone stayed and learned…something strange in university were a large number of students only attend the exams.

                Other instructors were in Biology and other subjects I loved and was interested in, those instructors had an easier time but the fact that they were showing their passion for a subject through their personality made it so much more fun for me to learn it seemed a treat to show up to their classes. 

                It is very important to entertain, bring your personality to the table and make the subject matter, which I love to begin with, even more fun and entertaining. You don’t have to use fun training components like kicking shields and rubber tubes to make Karate interesting, you can use your passion for Karate and make others feel it, then they will start to FEEL passion for Karate on their own.

Don’t let them get lost in the presentation

                Your goal is to teach a subject/idea/technique and that is your goal. I have seen, for good and for bad, people using to much personality in presenting a subject and it is either bitter and useless or way to entertaining and you don’t get the point of the class.

                One class I attended the instructor was “Trying” to teach a set of techniques that were designed to help with movement skills- specifically rotation after a front kick to face a 90 degree angle away from front…..so kick, rotate and reverse punch….and he was failing horribly because it was the world’s best Karate standup comedy act that was interfering with his teaching. It took a full hour of humor and wise cracks that made it impossible to finish he drills and work after the warm up….its was as painful as it was funny and as entertaining as it was completely useless.

                Another class was a guy who is rather well known in the world of Karate teaching with his personality front and center. He was so sour and jaded that all I remember about training with this well-known guy was his insults of Japanese people and culture, his disdain for “Canadian karate” ( and he is from the Toronto area) and his bitterness!  Good lesson, if you are in a bad mood before class….get in a good mood before class!

Importance of respecting your students

                I have trained with people who have not respected students and I have trained with those that do respect students.  You can see a different in the Dojos that have a mutual respect opposed to those that have a fear and placation kind of relationship set up. 

                The most important thing is if you want to keep students learning and you want to keep your dojo thriving you have to respect the fact that for the students this is recreation and they expect to be treated well.  Don’t treat them like cash cows and herds of stupid ‘Deer’ that you use to make a living.  Karate should be a challenge for everyone but they should also feel respected and enjoy their recreation.

Correcting students and motivation

                If you were told you suck, or if you were told you were hopeless/useless or a failure then you would leave a club…or you should leave a club….as soon as you can. That instructor is a clueless moron!  Unfortunately some instructors feel they have to push you down and keep you feeling like you NEED them to be better or they cannot be bothered to waste their time on you…and this is why they fail!

                I have seen Dingman Sensei work with high level black belts to get them ready for testing and seminars and have been on team Manitoba and seen the training he does with them. He has pushed seniors and paid attention to details and brought many of us up to the level we are at…and he also has spent time fixing a down block on a white belt and showing them that he cares. 

                When you correct a student remember that you have to motivate  them to move on and work hard on their own as well. Don’t demoralize them by being flippant or cracking jokes at their expense.  Show them the right way and also the right way to behave!

                Once you have corrected someone go back and see if they corrected it, if not…with a smile and pleasantly…re-correct them.  But if they “got it now” let them know they got it with a comment or a smile…and not a “well finally you got it” kind of comment.  And at the end of class or some point during…every once and a while say the word “GOOD” it can go a long way in letting someone know that they are doing better.  MOTIVATION leads to break through!

Avoid these subjects at all cost!

                No…not sex, religion and politics…or money, sex and how to raise children according to ME!  No avoid the “I used to…”, “Back in the day….”, “In Japan….” Or “When I was training I was a CHAMPION” kind of comments and subjects.  While an instructor should never discuss their personal religion or dislike for a religion or any religion….or any form of politics, Money or their opinion on how to raise a child…especially when you are actually saying “this is how YOU should raise your child”….keep the teaching to more about the student and the here and now! Oh, and it goes without saying that a instructor should never bring up sex, the opposite sex or anything to do with their ideas about sex, Sexuality or…well Keep that private!

                While the 5 Taboo topics can quickly sink a ship, the “historical “ view of things can be as caustic to a Dojo or class as brining up your use of thong underwear……Yes, that falls under “REALLY did not need to know”.  I have trained under instructors that could not let the past go, they held onto it with feverish and unrelenting NEED for it.  But they also forgot that they needed to teach the students they had NOW and they could be so much more than a past sports jock…they could be a Sensei!

Letting the lesson drive itself.

                When I teach I tend to start off with a basic Idea and or goal subject and kind of let the class drive itself based on issues I see, weak points that need to be addressed and I try and fit everything into a frame work and see how far I can get.  Writing everything down is to constrictive and I end up missing things and worrying about the written material more than I do the students.

                The best thing to do is to let the class move at its own pace and not be frantic about going through all your “suggested” written class components. Its not the end of the world if you don’t get to full Kata when you are breaking down a Kata in the class, as long as the students get a good work out and good class full of technical improvement ideas!

                Let the class move as it has to and just direct the thing when you can, let it happen and unravel with as much control as is needed but not much more….its a zen thing!

End notes

                The most important thing to remember is that while you are teaching, you are still a student! You are learning and should continue to do so! Learn about teaching, learn about Karate and get into the deepest parts of Karate.  Take up reviewing Karate on YouTube or other sites to learn more about it and bring that to the table when you have a moment in class.  Discuss it with seniors and figure out using a critical eye what helps you and what is just crap!

                Bring more to the table and focus on presenting the best you can, the things that you feel will benefits students and do it with respect and passion…and you will be a great Sensei!

                Keep the ego at the door and be humble and thankful that people actually show up and want to learn from you and you will learn the most important lessons about being a Sensei…..Passion, respect, Humbleness and love for Karate and your students and your peers.