Wednesday 12 October 2011
A team of instructors at a martial arts academy can do a really great technical job, by making sure that everything is really technically accurate, right on the mark when it come to the technical side of things. But what else is there? Is it good enough to just focus on the technical stuff?
A few great teaching tips:
1. Keeping things fun is one of the hardest things for martial arts instructors to do. Be careful of the balance of “talking” and “doing”. The greatest teachers are those who are “Invisible”. That is, the instructors who can get some awesome technical stuff going with as little intervention or “interruption” by the instructor as possible. This is not to say we do not intervene when we need to – we must – but do we do it in a way that gets big results from as little “chit chat” and “down time” as possible?
2. Are you getting bored teaching your lessons? If you are, then your students will be, and I noticed recently when looking at classes that while things are looking technically right and accurate, I wonder if we all have 10/10 for “fun factor”.
At Factor10 the answer to this is simple. Take out your “Instructor Detailed Session Planner” and draft a brand new lesson using the activities listed under the class formations in the “Client Fulfilment – Teaching Manual Part I of II”.
There are lots of ideas there and if you have an idea to add, please let me know about it so I can get our Group Leaders to test it and we’ll put it in our teaching system.
3. Do your students come away from class with a feeling that they have been empowered to be able to fight to protect themselves if this unfortunate situation arose?
I had one of our teenage Cho Dan Bo students talk to me yesterday and said:
“Master O, I don’t think I would be able to protect myself”.
This guy is a great martial artist, very athletic, and he is so talented I think he could knock down a dozen angry bikies if he had to! He can fight, and would definitely be able to pull out of the bag some really great stuff if pressed to. So when we are teaching, make it true authentic martial arts intensity and focus, in a way that empowers people to know they are strong and capable of looking after themselves.
When I teach Poomse I often reminding students they are fighting many “bad guys”, angry bad people who want to really hurt them. I get them to do the Poomse as if they are protecting themselves.
I remind them there are 9 different attackers in Taegeuk Il Jang and we’re going to protect ourselves against them. We are going to block their roundhouse kick in move number 1 and step forward and punch them as a counter attack to knock them down, and so on. Get the idea? Then your students will see Poomse as a fun self defence exercise that empowers them to be able to fight to protect themselves.
At Factor10 we teach great skills, and we have done it really well in the case of the teenage boy I talked to yesterday, but have we empowered all of our students? I know most are, however at Factor10 we “Strive for Personal Excellence” and don’t want to miss one single person on the mats when it comes to empowering them and building their self belief.
You’ll find your excitement about teaching will lift as we focus, yet again, on another great day on the mats.
Have fun!
Master Damien O’Flaherty
