Archive for the 'teaching karate' Category

Are you still passionate about teaching karate?

Published on May 1, 2012 in teaching karate. 0 Comments

I’m assuming for the most part you love teaching karate, but I know you have some days that you wish you could do over.

It’s important on those days when you’re feeling flat, unmotivated and lethargic that you find your passion for teaching karate, otherwise your class will fall into the same slump as you.

KEY POINT: The energy of your class is often related to your own personal energy.

When the energy drops, students get bored. When students get bored students stop coming. When students stop coming, your passion for teaching takes another beating. It’s an evil downward spiral…

Here are some tips for setting and maintaining high personal energy to ensure you teach well…

  • Get plenty of sleep!Avoid teaching class when you’re physically, emotionally or mentally exhausted! Nobody likes a grouchy unmotivated high school teacher – why would it be any different for you?
  • RelaxLeave any unnecessary outside stress OUTSIDE! Bringing your personal stress into the dojo will rub off on your students. In other words, negativity breeds more negativity. If you must, pound on your punch bags or do 50 pushups before your students arrive to amp up your own energy and release your pent up tension.
  • Structure & PlanningGive yourself a few minutes before class to mull over what you’re going to teach. Come up with a basic karate class plan with some different martial arts drills and exercises that you could possibly use. When your students arrive  you’ll be better prepared and feel more organized.
  • Allow yourself sufficient time to get to classMany instructors rush from their day job, battle the traffic and arrive frazzled at the dojo only to be irritated that their students are lined up out front waiting for the doors to open. Sound familiar? Give yourself an extra 15 minutes to arrive early, get ready, relax and plan your session.
  • Enjoy it!If you find you’re irritated or frustrated you gotta break that feeling my friend! Take a step back (physically and emotionally) and just smile. Put things in perspective and realize that your current circumstance is temporary and really is *NOT* a big deal. Getting bent out of shape over a student who can’t do his technique, or frustrated while disciplining an 8 year old raises your stress level and disrupts your momentum.

    Let it go! And get back to enjoying why you’re there… just like when you first starting teaching karate!

 

 

 

 

 

What would help them most?

Published on April 8, 2012 in teaching karate. 1 Comment

Often new instructors are so eager to teach they can overwhelm their student with too much detail.

They look at a particular karate technique and can immediately think of half a dozen things that could be improved like:

  • bending the front knee in zenkutsu dachi
  • holding the hikite in its correct position
  • creating tension in the stance
  • correct posture
  • proper body dynamics
  • the motion of the punch or kick
  • etc

However while some students want to know ALL of the things they need to improve, bombarding them with information is overwhelming.

When this happens little knowledge is retained and little progress is made.

If you’ve ever had an instructor impart a ton of information on you at one time you’ll know just how difficult it is to make a correction to EVERY SINGLE THING the very next time you attempt it.

And if this sounds like something you do yourself as an instructor think of this analogy:

Imagine trying to count the number of jelly beans in a bowl while the person next to you is calling out random numbers. In addition to that, you’ve also got to remember how many red jelly beans there are, how many green, and then subtract the number of purple ones from the total count.

Yikes… kind of overwhelming isn’t it?

So if there are 6 things you can see that your student needs to improve, where do you start?

The answer is simple if you remember this one basic question. Just ask yourself this:

“What is the SINGLE biggest thing I can help them with that will have the GREATEST impact?”

Never mind about the other 5 things for now – there will be plenty of time to come back and revisit those. Instead FOCUS on the most important thing and be HAPPY with your student improving that one aspect.

After they’ve made a marked improvement move to the next thing. It could be a few minutes later, a few lessons later or a few months later.

That’s ok…

Kata Mentoring Method

Published on March 13, 2012 in teaching karate and teaching kata. 9 Comments

Have you ever taught a class where you’ve simply had too many students for you to teach effectively? You feel like you’re being pulled in 10 different directions at once? Everyone is crying out for your attention and you’re spread too thin…

Let’s say you have 16 students but you need to work on kata, but you have a mix of grades, black belts, white belts and several colors in between. If you just work on the simple kata as a group, the black belts get bored. If you work on the advanced stuff, the others become overwhelmed. If you start with the simple kata and work your way to the advanced kata, eliminating students as you go… well you’re excluding students, and wasting valuable time in which they could be learning or practicing.

karate kataWhat to do?

When I’m confronted with such a scene I often use a method that makes the higher grades feel important, helps the lower grades gain a different perspective and simultaneously helps everybody learn. It’s kinda like a “big brother” program where an older person volunteers to mentor a younger person. I call it the  Kata Mentoring Method (KMM).

The way I use this method while teaching a karate class is to have the higher grades partner with lower ranked students. I then assign a kata for the less experienced student to learn or refine and make it the higher belt’s job to teach it to them. After all students have paired off, I give them 15 minutes or so to work together to improve their kata. At the end of the time, both “mentor” and “student” will present the kata they’ve been working on for the rest of the class.

Sometimes I have them do the kata in synchronized fashion, and sometimes they might demonstrate the bunkai / application.

This method has so many wonderful benefits.

  1. Lower ranked students learn from someone other than you.
  2. Your higher ranked students (mentors) impart with some of their knowledge, which also helps them learn.
  3. Your higher ranked students are acknowledged and feel significant.
  4. Your higher ranked students learn to develop leadership, communication and teaching skills.
  5. Students work together with each other which forms bonds and friendships.
  6. It takes the pressure off of you as a teacher.

Have you tried this method before?

If not I highly recommend you do… and don’t be concerned if your mentors aren’t perfect. They aren’t. Neither are you or I. The important thing is that something will be learned by both mentor and student, and nobody is excluded during class. You’ll also see an improvement in morale and develop a group that supports each other.

- Jason