A older method of being an instructor

 

 

As we get older, is it ok to just point out what should be done in your school or do you think it's time to rev up and work even harder and move faster (given health conditions) to continue the path?

 

I personally believe in doing everything that I expect my students to do. If they perform with a greater skill set than I can, that is a bonus for me as a teacher. But expectations of desired results should come with examples in my humble opinion!

 

What say you, those revered teachers and leaders in the arts? Remember there are no wrong answers, just an opportunity to share knowledge with us all.

It is nice if you can retain perfect health and always train at that level.

But that is only one possible answer.

 

I remember Funakoshi writing about his training as a boy, In his instructor’s garden.  He was not being group trained with teacher in charge.

Rather he was shown a movement, And his instructor went back to his porch and drank tea,  and watched, criticized and most often just responding again.

His instructor did not praise,  just finally showed a new kata when it was necessary.

 

Relatively an instructor running a class is a rather new thing.

I remember Mr. Lewis telling us.  how often Master Shimabuku just watched things and drank some tea.

 Beginners were taught by some seniors, The rest just trained, or not.

 

At times Shimabuku Sensei would come out and make a correction,

Show a new movement, or even offer a word when you did something right.

But the normal training was up to each person.

 

My own instructor taught much the same way. Seniors ran almost everything.

But at times sensei would come out and take over. There was no set pattern,

The key was each person was responsible for their own sweat equity.

Sensei would observe and control when something new was required.

Most of his focus was toward the senior students. But he always knew where everyone was. It was a grand approach.

 

Too soon after black belt I assumed the burden/responsibility of instructor.

Then for decades I ran everything from in front. I even at times had 25 students working on pieces of their kata, All at different stages of those kata,

And I would move from student to student making corrections.

 

Age happens, illness and injuries accrue, And my senior students too over,

 

I found I was even more involved what every student was doing,

Still teaching all of them at multi levels, Pulling away learning more myself.

 

Knowledge accumulates as time passes, You learn from everyone’s efforts.

I still handled the indoctrination of new students. And put much of my focus towards those who had been working over 30 years.

 

There is not one right answer, As in many things about karate,

There can be many, often diametrically opposed, right answers.

 

When I was a brown belt I was being trained by Charles Murray.

One day he said, “Victor, your first 20 years, your karate is your instructors karate, after 20 years your karate, is your karate.”

 

A pertinate closing thought, Back in 1985 I met Shimabukoro Zenpo at a clinic, I was not doing his art, but he knew a lot of Isshinryu in the country, from wheh he lived here.  He told me something that stuck with me.

 

Now remember this was 1984  and the explosion of karate on Okinawa was yet to come.

 

“What he said was on Okinawa everyone wanted to train with an instructor with 50 years of experience. They were not interested in training with a talented 2^nd dan.”

 

It made sense to me, what was more important on Okinawa, was the instructor’s knowledge to draw on.

 

 

Karate has so many different approaches,  My instructor training on Okinawa, experienced no testing.  Then when he taught he also did not use testing for belt promotions, using hand on experience with the students instead.

 

In time they did begin testing for Shodan, which was as much a test (one could fail) as an initiation for the successful new dan.

 

I used the same approach.  And i chose to use the unpredictability approach to class structure. No two classes ever repeating the same material.  To prepare the student for the reality of unprediciability of life a bit.

 

There were cycles of material I followed, but I never explained them to students, just had them experience their training.

 

I made another change, choosing instructor candidates to have 15 continious years of training proir to selection and acceptance from them.  Then a 5 year mentorship before they became instructor qualified.

 

When they assumed more and more, as I was less and less able, I focused even more on the students corrections, teaching the student and showing the instructor what to look our for.

 

We sort through students to develop dans, then sort through dans to discover who will stay a bit longer.

 

The mission must be to make value to every students experience to become more than they were, no matter how long they train.