My conversation with Thomas, a talented but inconsistent purple belt, rings all too familiar. “Is this your best effort, Thomas?” I ask, to which he inevitably replies, “No”. His half-hearted efforts are disappointing, yet it seems an all-too-common attitude among many students.<\/p>\n
We instructors stress the importance of wholehearted training because we understand that practice shapes performance. However, many students, particularly beginners and kids, fail to grasp this correlation. They attend classes regularly but don’t fully engage, believing knowledge alone will suffice when it’s time to perform.<\/p>\n
“We train like we play, and play like we train”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Reflection led me to question if I truly embody this mantra in my own teaching. If we demand maximum effort from our students, shouldn’t we hold ourselves to the same standard?<\/p>\n
Over 15 years, I’ve built my dojo and taught over 15,000 classes, continually striving for excellence in every aspect of my instruction. However, like Thomas, I occasionally get distracted and find myself not delivering my best.<\/p>\n
To counter this, I use a mental trigger – a simple question that redirects my focus:<\/p>\n
“How can I make this class the best class ever?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This query stimulates my creativity and helps me design better lessons. During class, if things don’t go as planned, it aids in course correction and maintains engagement.<\/p>\n
The human mind always seeks answers, and a simple question can inspire remarkable efforts. So, I pose this question to you, fellow instructors: “How can you make your next class y<\/p>\n
our best class ever?” And to Thomas, I’ll ask: “How can you make this your best effort ever?”<\/p>\n
What steps can you take to ensure that your next class is indeed your best one yet?<\/p>\n
Stay safe. Train hard. – Jason<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My conversation with Thomas, a talented but inconsistent purple belt, rings all too familiar. “Is this your best effort, Thomas?” I ask, to which he inevitably replies, “No”. His half-hearted efforts are disappointing, yet it seems an all-too-common attitude among many students. We instructors stress the importance of wholehearted training because we understand that practice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4169"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4763,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4169\/revisions\/4763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}