Martial-Arts-Teaching-Tip
Martial Arts Teaching Tip
Do you teach martial arts? Are you eager to have them learn at a faster pace?
Here’s a special tip … it has to do with how easy or hard you make it for your students to figure out the intended element from your lesson.
Some martial arts teachers think that there is benefit in having them “figure it out for themselves.” Other teachers want to spoon-feed every element to their juniors.
Note: It’s sort of like the debate in teaching a new language. Some teachers stay in the target language 100% of the time, seeing the benefit of more contact with the language for the students, in addition to having to figure things out for themselves. Other teachers, think that by speaking the native language, there is no confusion when the second (or third) language is presented.
My attitude is to use the language as much as possible, but don’t slow down the learning by being forced to stay in the target language.
This really applies to martial arts. I want my students to have as much contact with real, fast and hard techniques being fired off at them. On the other hand, I want to facilitate their ability to deal with the attack.
With the above in mind, I have a special teaching tip — when you teach, give the students time to learn on their ow, with a practice partner … BUT … when you give directions, give them specific help, to make everything as clear as possible.
You don’t have to use a lot of words to get there … just say enough to get them on the track to the right timing, precision, or distance.
Non-Martial-Arts Example
Here’s a non martial-arts example from a few minutes ago….
We recently bought a new Blue-Ray/DVD player. My wife is working with a how-to DVD, and she asked me on the remote control where she could see a bar of how much time had elapsed and how much time was left on the DVD.
She asked where she could find it. (There are lots of options — display, pop-up menu, home, sub menu, etc.)
Instead of answering, “Status button,” I said, “The status button, left side, a little lower than the middle.”
She went right to it, without any fumbling.
Simply adding two specific directions, I got her to the right display quickly.
Does this give you any teaching ideas?
“Phoenix eye to the armpit — corkscrew your fist to a palm-up position at the last instant.”
“Sidekick — as if you were reaching your foot over, trying to clear a coffee table.”
“Elbow-strike, forward and up … as if checking for a scrape on your elbow.”
