Teaching Martial Arts -- Part 2

In my previous post I asked the question “How do we learn?” As I reviewed my submission, I realized that I haven’t fully answered that question, so I will address and conclude that in this post also.

I discussed that motivation was essential to learning. It is terribly simple to prove this, find someone who doesn’t want to know something and try to tell him anyway. Let me know if he doesn’t sock you in the nose, I’d be interested in finding out. Don’t bother calling me up complaining about a broken nose, I already knew that was going to happen.

I concluded my last post with a question;

Is the motivation for learning the Teacher’s responsibility?

I say no.

When I look at what I wrote in my first teaching post, I can’t help but think of the other side of the coin: What did all those teachers I had think of me BEFORE my motivation to learn kicked in? What did I put them through? Did they go home at night and just think about giving up because of me & hundreds (or thousands) of students just like me? I know that many I had before I quit high school were constantly banging their heads against a wall from trying to just get me to THINK. To TRY. To fucking wake up.

Oh man, do I remember a few.

Looking at me with disappointment when yet another week went by that I didn’t turn in any homework. Repeating the same things over and over to me in exasperation, trying every trick in the book for so little (or no) return on the investment of time. Telling me how I was wasting my potential when I had just barely passed into the next grade level. Yeah, I remember. I would be hard-pressed to name anyone who would stand up proudly and say “He was MY student” who knew me before I was 20. In fact, I can’t think of a one.

It’s great if you CAN inspire someone to learn, or lead someone to knowledge and the desire for more knowledge. I’ll admit, whenever I have a student whose eyes suddenly pop open from GETTING IT, well, it’s a powerful feeling. Powerful enough to make you drunk on it. You have just brought somebody along to a point he couldn’t get to without your help, and for a moment you have tasted Godhood. But you can’t do anything about it if they don’t want to come along for the ride. You can’t force someone to do something because it’s “for their own good”, they won’t care and they won’t appreciate it even if they can see how much you have helped them.

In the writ, you can’t be someone else’s salvation.

But when people ARE motivated to learn, you will discover that open hearts and minds simply aren’t enough. With enough experience you will realize a myriad of ways are necessary to reach different levels of comprehension, and bring them to a higher understanding. Being open to learning isn’t enough, although it’s the most important step. The method of transference between people is like the method of delivery between postal sites. Ever lost anything in the mail? You send something from one place, and it just never arrives at the place it’s expected at. Teaching is like that.

Some people will understand if you tell them once.

Some will understand only after repeating the information several times.

Some will need to see you do what it is you are teaching.

Some people need a visual aid of some kind.

Some can only grasp it by attempting to do what you are explaining the “how” of.

Some people will do a combination of the above examples.

Some won’t get it at all.

And a very rare few will get it on the first try without any clues or explanations from you.

This demonstrates that people learn in different ways, and what we are learning , whether physical, mental or emotional often needs to be applied and reinforced to be sufficiently digested into our lives. Let me make an example of the note-taking method. We take notes at different stages of our lives for one thing or another, i.e. school, seminars, college, what have you. Now, taking notes doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone.

For some, just the act of writing down what was said or done is a way to burn it in.

Some will need to jar their short-term memory at some point to open the floodgate of memory.

Some will write notes to be able to record their train of thought at the time. This way, they can forget what they were thinking and concentrate on another area that is more immediate, and come back to what they took notes about later.

And of course, the original purpose of taking notes: As an aid to your normal study guides, something to fill in the gaps, a safeguard to cover what your textbooks don’t.

To be a successful Martial Arts teacher, you have to have a command of several methods of communication at your disposal, and the boundless patience to apply them. It’s a difficult task to get people from widely varied walks of life, education and intellect on the same sheet of music. Ultimately, students must be viewed and addressed as INDIVIDUALS, with the understanding that each one has a unique learning curve. Not everybody who trains with you will be a rocket scientist, and for that matter, you may be surprised how quickly the kid who works at Burger World picks up the essence of what you say. Similarly, the student must develop various methods of information retention to excise the most from his lessons. In some cases a particularly attentive student will sooner or later catch the syntax of his teacher’s speech pattern and inflection. They will hear the same lesson in different lectures, and detect what the essence of the lesson is by what the teacher says in accordance with his examples.

There are two types of student perceptions to be aware of when teaching martial arts:

1: Lessons that penetrate

These are things that make immediate sense to the student, or helps them to understand something else that you have taught. You can see when this occurs, normally the students can produce the desired action on command.

2: Lessons that deflect

These are what the student doesn’t immediately understand due to lack of experience, maturity, etc. They can also be lessons that don’t directly apply to certain students, such as techniques which require hyper-flexibility, or better than average speed and strength.

Although you are teaching the same thing to 20 people, not everyone will get the same lesson all the time. Different levels of skill, growth, effort and understanding will often as not dictate the course of the student’s comprehension and retention. Now, although they will be operating at different levels (approach & use of skills in flow, techniques favored by different individuals, etc) advanced students will recognize and respond to the flow and skill in each other. And still, sometimes important points you are trying to convey will just miss EVERYONE the first time around. It just happens sometimes.

When I decided to teach, I knew one important and embarrassing fact about myself: I had no idea how to give what I know about martial arts to someone else. Being good at physically DOING something doesn’t mean you can pass that on to someone else, although popular consensus in the martial arts disagrees. So I gathered all the information on teaching that I could, and true to habit, busted my ass for the knowledge. Books, seminars, websites, you name it. I wanted to learn how to be the best teacher I could possibly hope to be. Ah, but you know what they say about the lessons we learn the best, right? Yeppers, I did everything the wrong way. The HARD way. If there is a signpost that points to “Hard Way Avenue” you can bet I own a condo somewhere on it.

If you look through my previous posts, you’ll find an incident I had with one student that eventually went so wrong I had to kick him out. What I don’t mention is that I kicked myself for months afterward for being so stupid as to have tried everything I did in the first place to just get him to put forth some effort. I recently expelled yet ANOTHER student whom I had tried to teach against his will for almost as long. Here was a man who never paid attention, hurt other people in class, caused several students to quit and constantly challenged me in front of my class. Right on the heels of bad student #1, I start trying to convert bad student #2 with the same unrivaled failure for over a year before I tell him to hit the highway. Over a year. Gaaah.

Yeah, live and don’t learn, that’s me.

So I have determined that experience is truly the best teacher, for anything in life. And the art of teaching is no exception. It is an art, you know. It’s not something everybody can do, you really have to have a talent for it. You have to develop a kind of empathetic sense for what your students are going through, and reach out to them in a way they can understand. This may be contrary to the way you were taught in the first place, and you have to accept that we all learn in different ways.

Obviously, you must have something substantial to teach in the first place, something you know so well you can apply it under the most strenuous of conditions, as well as the most ideal. It must be something so familiar to you that the Pentecostal flame appears over your head when you speak of it. Because if you don’t, you will sooner or later arrive at a place where your understanding will fall down, and you will be tempted to “wing it” so that you don’t lose face in front of your students. This is an ego-fat knee-jerk attempt at CYA, and enough displays of it will only earn you ridicule, not respect.

This is a dangerous pitfall for most young teachers of whatever martial art, the danger of teaching too early. It’s uncommon for a person who opens a school to continue training himself under the same regimen he had when he didn’t teach, and there usually has to be a balance in your life for other things as well. So if you already have a LIMITED knowledge of your art, how much can you honestly pass on to someone else? 50%? 75%? More? The curse of limited experience training in, and practical use of your art is hereditary, you will pass it on to your students. If the pool of knowledge you are drawing from is shallow, or if you are one of the teachers who subscribe to the “hold half of what you know back” school of thought, and you have only 5 – 8 years of training under your belt, how far along can you really bring a student? How long will they tolerate your attitude until they realize you aren’t really getting them anywhere but to learn form #327?

Secondary is the invisible burden the word “teacher” carries with it, particularly in the martial arts. A Math teacher isn’t expected to be able to fight off a horde of English teachers. A martial arts teacher IS. And whether it’s a realistic expectation or not, you are teaching a system of motion based on COMBAT, and you will be expected to be able to “walk the walk”. If you cannot do this to some degree (you don’t have to be the baddest bastard on the block, but he should know who you are) what sort of students you will produce? Sooner or later they will be held in judgment by others, what will those people think of them? What will they think of you when your name comes up?

Teach: To impart knowledge or skill to another, either verbally, visually, tactile or any combination of the three.

There are some who like to argue over the semantics of the word “Teacher”. Although some might argue otherwise, the meditation and debate over the “Instructor label” adds NOTHING to the process of learning to be a teacher. To split hairs over the words “Teacher” “Instructor” “Coach” or “Trainer” distracts the focus from where it should have been all along: The individual who is doing the teaching. Any attempt to define your role other than “holder and dispenser of knowledge” is nothing more than wasted time and effort.

Responsibilities of a teacher:

1: Provide a clean, safe place to train.
2: Provide expert instruction of the art you are trying to teach.
3: Have a clear idea of what you want your students to become under your tutelage4: Continue to train, research and develop your own skills
5: Keep an honest and sincere way about your teaching
6: Promote growth and confidence in the student and his abilities.

Teaching isn’t something we are born knowing how to do, it takes time like any acquired skill. If we aren’t motivated, how can we expect the students to be? If we don’t know something, how in the world can we teach it?

Before you begin teaching, you must decide what you are teaching for. It’s important to establish a strong, clear goal for what you wish to accomplish as a martial arts teacher. Failure to clearly define your thoughts and goals will present themselves as stumbling blocks, and come across as confusion to your students. So, you want to teach martial arts: What is YOUR motivation for teaching?

--Love of the art
--Financial gain
--Sense of pride in accomplishment
--Sense of ego
--Develop training partners

These are only a few examples, there are many more, and ALL of them are valid. Teaching for a living doesn’t make you a bad teacher, nor does teaching because it caters to your ego to be in a position of power. Mind you, that’s not the rule, but it’s not an absolute either. Similarly, teaching because you love the art won’t necessarily make you a GOOD teacher either. There are hundreds of excellent practitioners who have no business being in front of a class teaching. Your reasons for LEARNING the martial arts and your reasons for TEACHING the martial arts will be vastly different. Learn to recognize the differences and use them to your benefit.

Another thing to consider before beginning a school is the ENDING of it: What will be the end result of training at your school?

Let us dispense with the fantasy promoted in so many kung-fool movies about an all-knowing wiseman who the student follows for the end of his days. If your teacher is anything worth his salt, he will train you with the intent of being BETTER than him. Anyone who doesn’t is selling something. So, the question is twofold:

1: What is a good, average amount of time a student can expect to spend in your school before he graduates?

2: What can the student expect to know at the end of his tenure with you?

The first question has some complication to it, but let us assume that a better-than-average practitioner is training with you, and will dedicate about 10 hours a week to training what you have taught him. That’s two hours a day. How long should he be taking direction from you? 8 years? 10? 15? How long will it take you to transfer your knowledge to a receptive, motivated student?

The second question is tougher, because it will display your shortcomings as well as your skill. This takes courage to face because we hate having our weaknesses thrown back at us, but addressing them is the first step in overcoming them. What level of skill should your motivated student have after two years? Six years? Eight? Think of this: If you have six dedicated students for ten years, will you eventually create six clones of yourself, complete with your bad habits, or will you produce six INDIVIDUALS who move well, each with his own character and personal distinction?

So, class structure is a necessary hurdle to work thorough before you open your doors to the public. A good template is to plan the focus and structure if your classes in advance. This can assist you in keeping track of WHAT you have taught to WHOM:

1: Goals of the class (Current Day)
2: Goals of the month
3: Goals of six months
4: Goals of the year

Doing this will give you a solid foundation to work from, and give you a kind of timeline to make changes and alter the curriculum as you see the need to. It will save you endless hours of trying to “figure out your next move” when you could be attending to something more important.

The motivation and goals of a student will change after a few years of training, and this is to be expected. Some will want proficiency at fighting, some will hope top achieve better coordination, some will want to be teachers themselves. As your students progress they will discover and explore new possibilities for themselves, and this will probably take them in a different direction than what you, the teacher, see as their potential. Remember, you are their martial arts teacher, not their mother. You must support them in their decisions.

Here is my golden rule of teaching martial arts, and it has never failed me:

“First, start with the TRUTH”

What do you know about what you are saying? As I said earlier, you must know your subject. If you are dishonest with your students at any point in their training, you are stacking the deck against you for the future. People aren’t as stupid as you may think, and if they catch you in a lie you will be paying for it in ways you never imagined. You will see doubt in their eyes every time you try to convey a lesson, even if it is the absolute truth. And soon they will ask themselves, why train with someone you can’t trust?

After that, it will only be a matter of time.

If you don’t know something, say so. If it causes you to lose face in front of your students, you should never have allowed things to get that far & you have only yourself to blame. A teacher who has portrayed himself to be a human being with human failings is allowed to make mistakes…He never said he knew everything! This is the kind of instructor who can learn from his own mistakes with impunity, because he isn’t held to some impossibly high standard or unreasonable expectation by his students.

However, the martial arts “Master” is in for a very rude awakening. He cannot admit ignorance of any small thing, no matter how inconsequential it may be, because his ego cannot tolerate acceptance of reality. He is setting himself up for a plummet from the 78th floor with no parachute, because sooner or later he will give an answer that others know is false and the jig will be up. This rule comes from Nicomachean ethics; “Avoid holiness like the plague”

I do this by putting myself on the same level as my students. They call me Bobbe, not Guru. When they ask something I don’t know, I simply answer with “I don’t know”. They accept this because I never once made them think that I was better than them just because I was teaching martial arts. We have no outward symbols of rank, and we all bow to each other in a circle, not a straight line with me in front.

Now, I realize this method isn’t for everybody. Belts and uniforms are cool to look at & give the school a sense of worth and uniformity. But the point is to find a way that works for you without turning your students into sycophants, or yourself into Jesu the carpenter.

Remember, there is a distinct difference between EDUCATION and INDOCTRINATION. You cannot simply recite myths and propaganda as if they were gospel and expect your students to follow you into the lion’s den. As a teacher, you must avoid an atmosphere that is reminiscent of a religious setting, such things send a subliminal message to the student that puts him in a particular frame of mind, one that should be avoided at all costs. AVOID SAGEISM. Do not deify yourself, or allow your students to do it to you. If the teacher allows or promotes this kind of behavior, then he will usually project himself as an “all-knowing” being, and attempt to turn the martial arts student into a zealot accepting instruction and a philosophy which leaves no room for growth outside of a single source of knowledge (the teacher). This will begin the descent of the pupil into what I call “followership”, the kind of person who has directly involved his martial arts teacher where he DOESN’T belong: The student’s everyday life. This is never a good thing, and will promote abuse of the student’s misguided goodwill by the teacher every time.

And you don’t want to be the teacher when the student wakes up.

The martial arts are difficult enough without any mystical woo – woo added to it. A knowledgeable instructor can teach for years with a well thought-out curriculum, some personal education, martial development and growth, and he won’t have to repeat a class or rehash information he has already taught to the same people. As your students gain the skills you teach them, their mental development will take off like a rocket and their learning curve will straighten out dramatically. This is to be expected if the teacher has been doing his job. Don’t stack the deck against yourself by saying or doing something that will cause them to despise you later on when they see you in a different light & realize you are human after all. If you are honest and accept yourself for what you are, so will your students. You don’t have to know everything, and if you admit this from the beginning then nobody else gets any credit for pointing it out. Similarly, don’t be arrogant in your knowledge and skill, your ego will be the source of MUCH regret if you are. Remember, if you give yourself a Jesus complex & project it to your students, don’t be surprised when they crucify you for your sins. You’re the one who demanded the palm fronds.

In closing, I would like to present a set of 15 principles that I have developed for my own growth, training and evolution as a teacher. Some are mine, some I learned from other people. It is my sincerest wish that you can also find some use for them as well. Good luck in your training.

1: Seek knowledge from wherever you can find it.

2: Work hard to understand what you have been taught

3: Strive to recognize essence over form.

4: Strive to discover the concept or theory behind technique.

5: Maintain the mindset of a student, not the ego of a master.

6: Retain honesty, sincerity and humility in skill.

7: Do not place reality behind tradition.

8: Feeling is more important than theorizing.

9: The definition of “Respect” isn’t “Grovel”.

10: The definition of “Student” isn’t “Disciple”.

11: The definition of “Teacher” isn’t “Master”.

12: There is no rule or law in martial arts that doesn’t have an exception or counter under the right circumstances.

13: Nothing explains everything – Nobody and no system has all the answers.

14: There is no perfect defense.

15: Learn to recognize the difference between real & false, loss & gain.