The ART of teaching

                Teaching is an art form! That is a statement that no one can actually state is wrong, and if they do say that its not an art then they are probably part of the problem with teaching!  No one should fall into the cookie cutter, everyone looks the same world that some groups strive for….yes strive for. They want everyone to look, speak and teach the same to a group of students for “consistency” sake, and it takes the art out of teaching and makes it some kind of sterile activity and takes the soul of the class and replaces it with mechanical paint by numbers style teaching that loses students interest and kills Dojos.

                Having said all that, there is an art to putting together a class for students and its something that is part “thrown in the deep end” and part “Deep research and training”. Its practiced personal expression that is conveyed on the Dojo floor or in the class room. The best teachers and instructors are those with personal passion and a need to teach and express themselves, my worst teachers/instructors verbally and physically regurgitated what they were taught and put about as much effort into teaching as they would watching a TV show. The key is to balance what you are teaching with who you are teaching with putting personal knowledge and expression into a set curriculum and balanced frame work of the class.

                Each organization has a curriculum that a student must learn and practice prior to testing for their next Kyu or Dan level.  For instance a yellow belt must learn Heian Nidan well enough to demonstrate it during a test, along with a gaggle of Kihon waza and some three step, five step or in some cases one step Kumite. The organization will set out the syllabus for testing and it’s the job of the instructor to get the student ready for said testing.

                There is however a lot of latitude that one has in teaching to get a student to the level they need to be at for testing. We have three months to teach a “Movement pattern” that is less than 30 movements long, and in some cases around 20!  During that three months we also have to polish Kumite skills, work on Kihon waza, but….if you think about the average time it takes to work on a kata, which is the biggest hurdle in my mind for most students, we have a lot of time to use different skill training and exercises and have some fun.

                We know we have a set syllabus and curriculum to have fulfilled but we can venture a tad out of the linear teaching patterns of Shotokan that we see some instructors follow religiously.  First off the Kyu levels will get bored and never stick around long enough to become Dan levels if we just teach the three K’s of Karate (Kata, Kumite and Kihon) but we also must remember that we are trying to teach a set structure to them that includes those three K’s.

By venturing off the path I am talking about adding to training, not changing it completely.  By adding striking shield training for impact training, maybe some fun calisthenics, self-defense drawn from the Kata or other fun drills to prop up the three K’s we can create a very interesting and fun class and still teach them the skills they need to pass their next test. After all the true artist/teacher makes the students work hard, tires them out completely and exhausts them all while entertaining and making the work out much more fun than it is grueling.

                Sure, teaching kids is harder than teaching adults. The adults often “get it” when it comes to hard work and you need to trick the kids into working hard more so than the adults, but you have the chance to really come out of your shell and be “one of the kids” when teaching them. You can add “Karate Games” and other fun stuff that enhances their training experience all while developing skills that will be essential to them going forwards.

                The trick is teaching them and having fun, but also getting them to learn the curriculum for each rank. Often we end up taking the kids and putting them in a “tiny tigers” program that is separate and has a secondary curriculum based on much more loose structured syllabus than the regular class, and that is fine. The point is to keep them interested and also teach them about Karate, the physical and non-physical things.

                Teaching Kids is not like teaching Juniors (rank) in that we have different ages, not its important to say that a child should never reach Senior level (Black belt) in a kids class, so you do need to, at some point, move them into the regular classes or at least have a kids regular track to your program were you end up teaching the curriculum required for advancement. Because of this I am a firm believer in having a completely separate Tiny Tigers program that makes use of “similar” kata, like the basic Taikyoku Kata and introduces basics with games and gear that is aimed at the appropriate Age level. Meaning no Makiwara training or heavy bag work, but perhaps some hand pads and kick shields for impact training and proper Kumite style drills that are super controlled and safe.

                Teaching Adults can also be challenging at times, but for very different reasons than those facing instructors teaching the kids. Teaching adults is not just pushing a class through the paces. One must remember to respect the students and show them correct physical form and functionality for the movements. But one must remember not to treat them as children,  just juniors wanting to learn! The art of teaching adults is by far easier for most over teaching children, but I occasionally see instructors teaching adults like they are kids, or getting frustrated and walking away from the class or members upset.  Relax, teaching means helping the student make small incremental jumps up the rank and technical ladder. Patience and persistence in teaching is needed just as much when teaching an adult as when teaching a child.

                One of the biggest sins one can exhibit when teaching is Ego, you are NOT their for yourself. Yes you will gain from the experience, but only if you focus on the students not your fancy kicks or fancy movements. The student does not care if you can hook kick and apple of their head, they want to know if you can teach them and train them to be able to do things like proper form and eventually to get them doing higher end techniques.  If you teach with Ego you will get board of showing off at some point and frustrated when students stop being amazed by your ability and frustrated that you are not teaching them to do things.

                The next deadly sin is giving up. You would not allow a student to throw in the towel on training, why are you going to do that on them. If a student does not understand something it is your JOB to try different approaches till they do get it. Work hard to realize that if they don’t get it it is your fault for them not understanding this. Try different approaches, seek out ideas from your peers and push to make sure you work to help the student. They are paying money to be in the program and even if you are not taking in a living wage off of this hobby they deserve your best efforts.

                The next items to discuss is who should teach junior belts and senior belts. My opinion and my instructors are the same. Junior black belts (Shodan and Nidan) are more than capable of teaching and instructing Kyu level students up to Nikyu and even Ikkyu.  Normally I would say that a Shodan and Nidan can run a class for juniors as long as they have solid foundational skills themselves and understand the basics, which may seem a no brainer because having a Shodan means you understand the basics, but unfortunately I have seen a few Shodan that may understand the basics but cannot communicate with others very well, but I have seen a few Yondans in the same situation.  

                Junior Kyu levels can be taught by Nikyu and Ikkyu in a Dojo setting with supervision from a Yudansha, but they should only be teaching basic techniques and not going into advanced stuff,  Just Kihon and working on basic movements of Kata. Shodan and Nidan should be working with the kyu levels to improve the Kata and basic skills. One of the biggest pitfalls a Dojo can fall into is having a intermediate level student teaching advanced skills that they are only just becoming aware of. I Cringe when I hear of a student coming back from a camp or class and suddenly teaching a concept, fundamental or application that they don’t truly understand.

                I teach a lot of joint locks and applications for self-defense in my classes to seniors and I have trained for YEARS in these to make sure I can apply them correctly and in a safe way, I let all my senior students know that I don’t want them teaching these without me present and would prefer that they NOT teach them. When I first started teaching applications I hurt a lot of students out of ignorance and not being careful enough, I learned my lesson and went to train privately with people that specialized in joint locks, throws and even earned a Judo Dan level in the process. I then trained like crazy in the Aikido, Chin Na and Judo so that I understood it, and even now I am only comfortable teaching a small amount of the basics I know in these and applying them to Karate. I HATE seeing people that I consider untrained teaching concepts and applications they just learned and are still figuring out.

                For those reasons I usually limit the shodans and Nidans in our organization to teaching only Kyu levels and leading classes without in-depth explanations for Brown and Black belt classes. The reason for this is that they are still exploring Karate and have just mastered the very basic level of Karate. They are not ready nor do they have the tools to lead a student through the same waters they themselves just came through. My biggest pet peave is hearing that someone just came back from camp/class/seminars and they are teaching advanced class subjects and exercises to people, when they have not had a chance to study this themselves. The problem comes up when something changes or they need to correct something and they don’t really understand the variables because they did not study the material past the class. It can be dangerous and more than likely very useless to the students as the instructor does not know the ins and outs of the subject.

                There is also a huge difference between teaching traditional Karate and sport Karate. Teaching Traditional Karate is teaching a in-depth and intricate set of skills that focuses on many different facets of life; from self-defense to movement skills to health and wellness, stress relief to life skills like goal setting and communications. The teaching of traditional Karate has vast applications and requires a person that cares and it has a deep and rich selection of subjects to teach and specialize in. Sport Karate however is focused on training people to compete. This means polishing the aesthetics of Kata and working on athletic elements like explosiveness, speed, flexibility and range of motion.  The training is fairly narrow and shallow and restricted to specific athletes for short periods of time.

                Athlete training is a limited endeavored and normally only takes up a small percentage of a instructors time. An instructor who focuses training athletes may get a lot of notoriety but the clubs will be shallow and short lived in the end. A focus on athletics will also under develop students and create an ego issue in the end. However, sport is an important part of testing yourself and your Karate to develop and will push you to work specific aspects of your Karate. While one must take care not to over focus on sport it can be a valuable tool in gaging your knowledge and advancement in skill.  Because of the delicate nature of Karate training only those that have a good balance of knowledge and training should groom athletes or train students in Karate.

                I would have to say that anyone can instruct a set curriculum or coach a sport karate class with the right guidance. Its actually much easier than some would imaging, but to be an instructor in Karate takes a lot more than just showing up with a book of ideas and yelping out orders.

                Instructors should first be students and study Karate as a passion. They need to focus on development as a instructor and work towards understanding Karate on a more personal level. They also will find that they specialize in different areas of Karate. They will bring specific teaching styles, ideas and understandings to the table and will help build clubs up with solid students and other instructors learning and developing from them.

                A pre requite to teaching is being a sold student and working hard at finding a deeper understanding of Karate from a personal point of view and then finding out how that applies to the general training in Karate. Some people really enjoy a focused training program, like they really love Kata but hate Kumite or don’t like the sport aspect or don’t like anything but the sport aspect. This makes for a shallow program and even I realize that sport training is required and have studied tournament Karate. 

                It is also important that people bring anything they have trained in extra to the table when training and then try to convert it to the training program that they teach students, this will assist them in building a solid tool kit when teaching. Remember to always study and bring your experience to the table in different endeavors as well, be it a different martial art or outside of realm of Martial arts.

                However, while we all have our own teaching styles and systems, I do believe that not everyone is a good fit for being an instructor. Most people can be coached and given time they become good or at least competent at teaching, but people who enter into teaching because of ego will never be ready to teach or run their own programs even if they train hard and work up to it.

                A few of the best ways to grow as an instructor is to listen for feed back. It’s a funny thing however. We have to have tough enough skin to ignore the insults and jabs that get thrown at new instructors and take them as constructive even if they are not. I remember when I was teaching for my instructor at one of his clubs a rather surely brown belt once confronted me on my not believing in wasting time warming up. Now, let me be honest, I do warm my students up, but not always the way that they are used to. First off I don’t believe that you need to take a third of a class to warm up doing silly Yoga stretches that are better done after class to build flexibility. I think that you should do a quick 5 minute warm up that gets your blood flowing, take a second to stretch out and then get into it!

                Well this gent was used to the ½ hour stretching and bending and warming up like a ballet star that was once prevalent in Martial arts classes. The worst part….I used to lead these warm ups!  Well he got into it with me over the whole lack of warm up and I am sure he had other issues, but once he opened his mouth past just expressing his want for a warm up I stopped listening. I got aggressive back and then I stopped listening all together and told him to call ahead and he did not need to take my classes.

                Point being that it took me a while to benefit from this interaction and the benefit I got, not all feedback is good, but you can still learn from it. In this case I learned you can’t make them all happy and you don’t need to.  I sat back and studied my reasoning, read up on warm ups even more and it affected the way we did warm ups going forwards.

                Feedback however is a great tool.  I don’t go asking “Hey how did I do” anymore but I used to ask what people thought of the class ext. Now I listen and watch how people react, did they get a good work out and are they learning. Often someone will spontaneously interject and tell me how they liked a particular class, this kind of feedback is HUGE in a instructors development. One should ask students in the beginning what they thought, or how they felt a class went, it does not have to be formal just a quick question.

                We often don’t ask for feedback because we are nervous about how it makes us look, are we trolling for compliments? Insecure? Or are we wanting a pat on the back?  It does not have to be this kind of ego trip that leads you to asking how you did, just a quick conversation that asks “Did I do okay, was there something you did not like?”. This kind of critique can help you grow big time as an instructor. Feed back is normally best from those that you are teaching, why…well your peers know what you are teaching and are not your audience, so white we can point out technical flaws and mistakes, your audience will let you know if they will come back to you and train with you.

          

                The last thing that one must understand when teaching or assisting in teaching is that you can not make every student happy. Not all students will Jive with your style of teaching, not everyone will want to do what you are teaching and not everyone is on the same path as you.

                Lets face it if we all wanted the same things it would be dull and Karate would be flat! The nice thing about Karate is that it has so many facets to train in, from Martial Art that focuses on the aesthetics to a very to the point self-defense tool to a sport that is fast and dynamic. The nice thing about Karat is that it has so many faces that you can teach a different aspect of Karate every class and not worry about repeating yourself for some time. However, This is also a problem because not all students want to train in Karate for the same reasons and some are adamant that they don’t want to do specific things, or more than likely are just not going to be happy doing a particular aspect of training.       

                There is also the fact that your teaching style may also rub some people the wrong way. It’s a martial art, some people feel that this means “Military training” and they show up for the grumpy and stern instructor that barks orders and whacks them with a stick to keep them moving and motivated. They don’t like it when you smile and you joke around a bit, they think its impolite and not traditional when you are human and try to have a tad bit of fun.

                Some people think Karate is like an aerobics class with white pajamas. They don’t like it when you go all sergeant major on them and bark orders, and don’t even reach for that shinai or they will shut down and never come back. They want a smily happy person telling them how great they are and how they need to “push on” and “Finish hard”.  Trust me when I say that growing up in Karate in the 80’s, we did not have happy aerobics teachers prodding us on with impactful motivating phrases and a “Great job” kind of approach. Our instructors expected us to train hard, you paid to come to a traditional Dojo and you got the beating to prove it if you did not work hard.

                You will also find people that just don’t like you and your approach. They will question your ability to teach, do Karate, your knowledge, lineage or something….anything….just to put you down a peg in their mind. Trust me when I tell you THEY ARE NOT WORTH THE EFFORT TO FEEL BAD ABOUT. You will always have some negative person or someone trying to shoot you down when teaching. Screw them! You are the one dedicated to Karate enough to teach! Let them be all negative and just keep pushing on.

                You cannot keep all the people happy, you wont make everyone want to train with you, you wont be able to cater to everyone. Just keep plugging away and pushing your training.  If  they like it they will stay, if not they make room for those that do want to train with you. Your true peers will help you, some may even teach so different than you that it’s a good idea to team up! But those that put you down, tell you that your skills as an instructor or Karate person are lacking, well they are short sighted and probably jealous of you in some way so let them go and keep plugging away. You cannot make everyone happy…but you can make yourself happy.  

                So, you still want to be an instructor. You still have the passion swelling up in side of you. Remember its often a thankless Job and you wont make a tone of money at it if you are honest and traditional. You will have days when you are paying out of pocket for rent, you will have months when you see six students show up. But if you keep pushing and you really focus on being the best you can be, you grow and try and improve constantly as an instructor and you are doing it for the right reasons, while learning to avoid the “Issue people”, you will eventually get to that point when you just enjoy showing up to work with your students. You will see progress and you will learn to drive your ego away and keep your students progressing.

                Keep training, learning, studying, refining and keep pushing and you will make this work for you. You will help your instructors legacy be passed on and become part of the lineage of the organization and your instructors lineage.  You will form bonds with students and you will learn to enjoy the important things in life like friendships, relationships and the joy of others.