drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
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Yeah. You cant just demonstrate the technique perfectly and think that is enough for the student to understand it.
Different teaching methods have different milage
Dojang Etiquette: Students teaching students.
- Thread starter Notaninja
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Yeah. You cant just demonstrate the technique perfectly and think that is enough for the student to understand it.
Different teaching methods have different milage
If there is no instruction on how to be an instructor do you expect there will never be any mistakes?
I see your point Paul, but I'm looking at it from the paying students pov. If a beginning student is learning from a white or yellow belt (which I don't agree with) there better be at least a black belt level instructor looking over their shoulder to avoid mistakes that the beginner will start to ingrain in his memory. Just my opinion.
I think the original question concerned unsolicited advice from kyu-ranked training partners, as opposed to kyu-ranked official instructors/assistant instructors.
I think it depends on the situation. At my current school, there's very much an attitude that we are all learning from each other as a group effort. Junior students will help other junior students correct their technique when a senior practitioner isn't immediately on hand to do so. What makes it work is that everyone has a pretty realistic idea of their own knowledge and limitations. If a student isn't fairly confident in the advice they are offering, they'll call over an instructor to inquire about the correct approach to the technique. They also generally won't offer the advice in the first place unless their training partner is visibly having trouble with the technique in question. When I'm teaching a class and floating around watching and correcting students, if I notice one student helping another figure out the technique, I'll watch and listen before stepping in to see how well the first student understands and can explain what's going on. I have some white belts who I can tell will be good instructors some day, based on how well they can remember and explain details of technique. (Bear in mind that this is BJJ, so some of these white belts may have been at that rank for two years or longer.)
I've also in the past been in classes for other arts at other schools where junior students who didn't really know what the heck they were talking about would hold up practice with their training partner so they could pontificate with their (incorrect) advice about how to do things. I'm not so much a fan of that.
I think it depends on the situation. At my current school, there's very much an attitude that we are all learning from each other as a group effort. Junior students will help other junior students correct their technique when a senior practitioner isn't immediately on hand to do so. What makes it work is that everyone has a pretty realistic idea of their own knowledge and limitations. If a student isn't fairly confident in the advice they are offering, they'll call over an instructor to inquire about the correct approach to the technique. They also generally won't offer the advice in the first place unless their training partner is visibly having trouble with the technique in question. When I'm teaching a class and floating around watching and correcting students, if I notice one student helping another figure out the technique, I'll watch and listen before stepping in to see how well the first student understands and can explain what's going on. I have some white belts who I can tell will be good instructors some day, based on how well they can remember and explain details of technique. (Bear in mind that this is BJJ, so some of these white belts may have been at that rank for two years or longer.)
I've also in the past been in classes for other arts at other schools where junior students who didn't really know what the heck they were talking about would hold up practice with their training partner so they could pontificate with their (incorrect) advice about how to do things. I'm not so much a fan of that.
I think most students would be unwilling to pay what it would cost to always have a qualified instructor standing over their shoulder. That's called a private lesson, and it's much more than the cost of group classes. So the question becomes whether that student would rather have input in that moment from someone slightly ahead of them, or no input at all in that moment.
I think there may be a bit of influence from the instructor's style that helps most students understand what they can and cannot reasonably help another student with. That realistic understanding is key to having students work out problems together (which helps students learn the principles of the art faster, IMO). My students do what you described; it's not uncommon for the senior person in a pair to call me over to fix something they know is wrong, but don't know how to fix.
Well yes I agreed completlely. I do cringe when I see white/yellow belts teaching beginners.
I've never seen a white or yellow belt teaching a beginner.
I have.
I've seen them helping. I've seen them give input. But for one to actually teach, in my mind, would mean someone puts a new student with a yellow belt and says, "Go teach him ____ technique," then walks away and leaves the yellow belt student to do the teaching. If that happens, it's a bad thing (with only a few very odd exceptions).
Jedmus
Orange Belt
I have practiced both Aikido and Tae Kwondo and found that in TKD dojangs, helping a student below your rank is often appreciated when instructors or senior students are busy. In my opinion, this helps to solidify the idea of respecting practitioners above your grade and not just your instructors and creates a friendlier environment for beginners
I think it also breaks the mindset that "the instructor is infallible". If only one person can provide help, it creates a too-vivid divide between student and instructor. We all know it's a long, graduated slope, rather than a stark divide. Frankly, I'm more than happy to have a student who is well-versed in something spend time with a student who struggles at it. It's time well-spent for both of them.
Jedmus
Orange Belt
I couldn't agree more! A lot of people also forget that just because someone isn't a black belt, it doesn't mean that they don't have something to bring to the table. Every great, revolutionary practitioner started somewhere
Absolutely. And every instructor has his or her weakest areas. Kicks were always easy for me, and I had pretty good ones (and some of the higher kicks for our school, which rarely kicks above the chest) largely because of a lot of years playing soccer ("football" for those outside the US). Even when I was a purple belt (2 before black), it wasn't unusual for my instructor to use me as a resource to help people develop their kicks...and their defenses against them (ugh!).
I started helping teach while I was still a white belt. I was a couple of weeks away from testing for yellow and my master had already selected me to be the first member of the leadership team. Granted I was also technically the highest ranking student in the school at the time too. I would only teach steps of the basic form to kids one day a week. I also had leadership class every week to teach me how to teach. My experience is certainly an exception to the norm since it was a brand new school, only a couple of months old at the time.
Now at green belt I am helping teach in every kids class and occasional family classes. The biggest compliment I've gotten from my master was while we were having breakfast and he was giving me some teaching advice then shook his head and said "I keep forgetting you're only a green belt. You have time to learn."
He always checks what I'm teaching and works with the students after too. But we practice how to teach various techniques so it's not like I'm just a random student choosing to correct someone.
Sorry for the long post! I felt a bit defensive reading the thread and wanted to explain a bit for anyone who's read my "one step closer" thread and wondered why I'm teaching.
Now at green belt I am helping teach in every kids class and occasional family classes. The biggest compliment I've gotten from my master was while we were having breakfast and he was giving me some teaching advice then shook his head and said "I keep forgetting you're only a green belt. You have time to learn."
He always checks what I'm teaching and works with the students after too. But we practice how to teach various techniques so it's not like I'm just a random student choosing to correct someone.
Sorry for the long post! I felt a bit defensive reading the thread and wanted to explain a bit for anyone who's read my "one step closer" thread and wondered why I'm teaching.
My program is fairly new (a bit more than a year), so I don't have any advanced students. My one advantage is that my wife has about 7 years of experience in mainline NGA, so there are parts of the curriculum she can reasonably deliver to a new student. I actually created a structure for students to be able to lead "study groups", where they'd be helping other students learn and practice. Those don't require they have any advanced rank (depending upon the study group, they can start leading midway through white belt if I trust their ability). Things like this are necessary for my program, since it's part-time and I travel a lot. The right student can teach the right things to other students.
Am I remembering correctly that the Shojin-Ryu is your own offshoot of mainline NGA? If so, what was the impetus to split away from the mainline and what are the differences in your curriculum from the original?
I didn't know I was going to be a teacher. When I started Martial Arts there was a beginners class at 5 o'clock. Once you knew enough (?) you went to the main class at 6:30. I never left that beginners class when I was moved up to the next one. There' wasn't any other place I wanted to be other than the dojo, so I took both of the classes. I was always the first one at the dojo, usually waiting outside for the Sensei to arrive and open the doors.
One time, between the two classes (half hour break) one of the new kids, who I had been lined up next to in the fist class, asked me to show him how to throw what our Sensei called a "hand sweep" because he couldn't get it. I had noticed the kid was always covered with dog hair when he came to class, so I knew he had dogs. I said, "say your dog was hurt, had glass in his paw or something, and you were carrying him inside to put him on the kitchen table, but it was covered with stacks of laundry. Bring your leg up, without opening your arms or dropping them, so you won't drop the dog, and swipe everything off the table, without turning too much so you won't scare the pup." And I did the motion, like I was carrying a dog in my arms. He said, "oh, okay" and did the motion, with pretty much what our Sensei wanted the motion to look like. (I say "motion" because this isn't actual kicking.)
This happened again a week or so later, with another kid and another kick (so called) Next thing I knew, I was in charge of all the kids who couldn't get the motion of certain techniques. To get them ready (somewhat) to get into the next class. It had nothing what-so-ever to do with teaching Martial Arts, but had everything to do with communicating ideas to people who moved differently. I had been training a month and a half at the time.
I started talking to people who taught for a living. Taught anything, Math, English, welding, swimming, baseball, whatever. I went and watched them any time I could, bored out of my mind most times, but ended up getting some valuable insight. Couple years later I was teaching the beginners class, then the kids class.
Been at the teaching thing ever since. Still learning.
One time, between the two classes (half hour break) one of the new kids, who I had been lined up next to in the fist class, asked me to show him how to throw what our Sensei called a "hand sweep" because he couldn't get it. I had noticed the kid was always covered with dog hair when he came to class, so I knew he had dogs. I said, "say your dog was hurt, had glass in his paw or something, and you were carrying him inside to put him on the kitchen table, but it was covered with stacks of laundry. Bring your leg up, without opening your arms or dropping them, so you won't drop the dog, and swipe everything off the table, without turning too much so you won't scare the pup." And I did the motion, like I was carrying a dog in my arms. He said, "oh, okay" and did the motion, with pretty much what our Sensei wanted the motion to look like. (I say "motion" because this isn't actual kicking.)
This happened again a week or so later, with another kid and another kick (so called) Next thing I knew, I was in charge of all the kids who couldn't get the motion of certain techniques. To get them ready (somewhat) to get into the next class. It had nothing what-so-ever to do with teaching Martial Arts, but had everything to do with communicating ideas to people who moved differently. I had been training a month and a half at the time.
I started talking to people who taught for a living. Taught anything, Math, English, welding, swimming, baseball, whatever. I went and watched them any time I could, bored out of my mind most times, but ended up getting some valuable insight. Couple years later I was teaching the beginners class, then the kids class.
Been at the teaching thing ever since. Still learning.
You are quite correct in that, Tony.
My original aim was just to find a way to teach the art that was more "natural" to me. I spent about two years just working on that idea, before I realized there was a bigger piece I felt a need to work on.
So, the starting point was twofold. I'll have to give a bit of background on NGA to explain part of it. NGA's core curriculum is divided into 5 Classical Sets, each containing 10 Classical Techniques. The Classical Technique is a one-technique kata, slightly stylized, though not nearly so much as you'd see in one of Kondo Sensei's Daito-ryu videos. In mainline NGA, students are taught the Classical Technique first. Once they can repeat it with some reasonable facility (usually an entire class), they learn an "application" (an actual defensive use). In most schools, testing for the first four student ranks is almost entirely around the Classical Techniques, and the curriculum is focused around them to the extent that students are often taught to keep their applications as close as possible to the Classical.
I found that the Classical Techniques bred a step-pause-step-pause-step approach in many students, because they are fairly exacting (as most kata are). I also found students were focusing on the precise movements, rather than the principles, so some of them took many years before they started being able to adapt to brand new situations. So, my initial aim was to reduce the focus on the Classical. I still use the Classical Sets as the defined area of the curriculum, but my students don't practice the Classical form as often as mainline students do.
I also made changes to the Classical forms, in part to remove some of the requirement of precision and replace it with a requirement for adaptation (meaning the new Classical form requires they make adjustments the old one didn't).
I also altered the focus of movement. In the mainline Classical forms, the vast majority use an exiting motion in the first 3 sets. Students nearly universally struggle to make the transition to entering, so I changed some of the Classical forms to focus on an entering motion, and put students in closer proximity for some of the techniques. I also changed some of the Classical forms to allow me to accentuate some key principles that I saw many students missing, even at later student ranks.
Then I added two more sets, called the Self-Defense sets, which are much looser. They are simply responses to some possible attacks. The intention is to get students some early responses that don't rely on "aiki", or even on good technique. The Basic SD set is very basic, and is what students work on their first few weeks. The content is some of the same stuff I'd use in a long SD seminar. The Advanced SD set is still a work in process, and is intended for students who've had a year or so of training, and has more ground work, some weapons defense, etc . Again, this is intended to be non-aiki material to supplement our core.
Those are the biggest changes. They aren't huge, and one of my students wouldn't fall too far behind if they transferred to a mainline school. I also changed some of the testing requirements (including some very esoteric Japanese vocabulary) and realigned the ranks (in part, to remove confusion if a student goes to visit a mainline dojo).
In part, Shojin-ryu is an experiment. I believe I can help students learn the "aiki" in Aikido earlier, without sacrificing the effectiveness. I hope it brings something new to the art, and fosters some thought and debate.
There is one other piece to the difference. I also have a minor focus on helping the students grow as people. We discuss leadership, decision-making, and how to translate some of our MA lessons to life. To me, that is integral to Shojin-ryu - it should help improve the student's effectiveness in life, since we hope they'll never actually need the physical defensive skills they are developing.
