teaching karate

Over the summer, i taught kids weekday mornings and over 40 guys in the afternoon. After summer ended, i taught twenty year olds on evenings. I learned quite a bit from the experience.

Kids are quick to learn. You just have to deal with their short attention span. They also respond well to kindness and light negative reinforcement.

The over 40s are just as quick to learn specially if you explain things to them. However, some have health issues you need to keep informed about but they adapt just as easily as the kids.

The twenty somethings are the hardest to teach!! Somehow, they have forgotten which is left and which is right, literally. Some are conscious of their looks and even if you correct them several times, they still make the same mistake. They are old enough to understand but dont. They are young enough to improve dramatically but they wont push themselves. Of course i cant generalize but my students are such.

As a teacher, i must know more than my students. As a karate teacher, i must be stronger and faster than they are, too.

It is so rewarding to have the little ones open up to me and tell me what concerns they have and the littlest one is really sweet when she asked me to teach them again. ( the guys who teach them now are a little strict thats why) Dont get me wrong, i dont baby them and i give them just as much work to do as the other guys but i try to make it more fun and i keep changing it to maintain their focus.

One of the older students told me how much it has improved his stamina in basketball and how fast his movements have become. It also warmed the heart when he said that sometimes, one knows when a person knows his stuff and that im one of those who knows what im teaching.

Karate has been a part of my life for 26 years last april 9. It is quite fulfilling when i have finally stepped up to continue the cycle of learning in this martial art. Just as my teachers taught me in the past, i now pass on the knowledge to my students. Hopefully, i do so just as well or better than they did so that in time, my students will eventually be able to pass on what i taught them to the next generation of karatekas.

I have much to learn but i do feel confident enough to be able to guide the colored belts up the ranks until they reach the point that they can learn on their own. In karate, a colored belt rank is like grade school and once you reach black, that is the time when you truly begin to learn karate.

(i swear, the things that enter my mind at 2am are crazy/weird)