Has your instructor ever injured a student?

[geezer]

Reading the thread on "Bully Instructors"... I got to wondering, how often do injuries occur in training, and of those injuries, do they ever happen when working with an instructor?

I ask this because I screwed up in class last week. My art (WC) is essentially a striking art, but we do have plenty of leg-checks, sweeps and throws. I was showing some intermediate students how to close, grapple and throw. The demo went fine, but we don't have mats and so we have to let the other guy down easy. Some of the students have a natural uneasiness about going down backwards to the floor... and we haven't spent enough time on falling, especially on hard surfaces. I think this is a big part of the the problem. Anyway, for whatever reason, when I was working with one of the students, he got into a weird position and popped something in his knee as he went down. He got up and walked it off, but pretty much had to sit out the rest of class. Then when he missed the next class a couple of days later, I knew something was wrong. I called him today and his knee was still troubling him. I drove over to his house and gave him one of my old knee braces (I've had a lot of injuries over the years) and recommended that he get it checked out.

The problem is that he's and older guy (just a few years younger than I am), does a physically demanding job (electrician) and is self-employed with no medical insurance. So if this turns out to be serious, he's screwed. And it's my fault. So I'm feeling like an idiot. On one hand, when teaching I've never claimed to be a "master", and in the real world, stuff happens. On the other hand, as an instructor, I am responsible for my students safety. Period. Any thoughts?

 

[Big Don]

Any martial art, aside from marksmanship, is a demanding physical pursuit. Injuries WILL happen. My Sifu says "Two things will happen in sparring, you will get hit and it WILL hurt." I wouldn't limit that just to sparring.
I'd tell you not to feel bad, but, that is impossible. The best you can do is be careful in what you do, and be aware of the inherent dangers involved.

 

[jthomas1600]

No, I nor my kids have never been injured at the hands of the instructor. That being said, I understand that it is a contact sport (on the sport side) and an activity geared towards combat. So if I were to be injured I would not hold my instructor responsible, I would accept that it is the way things go.

Your student is fortunate to have an instructor who notices when a student is missing and is concerned enough to make a house call and encourage him to go get it checked. You sound like a stand up guy.

 

[K-man]

I have an elbow injury that is the result of resisting an arm lock late last year. The other elbow and both shoulders, hurt in the same session, have recovered. As I have often stated here, we train our aikido against full strength resistance and if you don't tap in time it hurts. Our Sensei can get past every obstacle we can throw but at times we do suffer. He doesn't set out to injure but he does want you to resist his technique.

As a result some students do leave. This is not the way I treat my students but basically my students are also my friends.

 

[sgtmac_46]

You want safe? Take up crossword puzzles.

 

[Mark L]

I'd tell you not to feel bad, but, that is impossible. The best you can do is be careful in what you do, and be aware of the inherent dangers involved.

This.

If you didn't feel bad, that would be a problem.

 

[Danny T]

Geezer, I know your feelings and concern.

Had a similar incident 14-15 years ago. On a throw a students elbow was dislocated. (he was fine within a couple of months and has continued training these many years) Difference was he had been practicing throws and falls for a couple of years and it still happened. I felt responsible for injuring someone who trusted me with his safety. I have had many injuries from hard training over the years, it happens. But I did feel awful for his injury. As an instructor you are responsible to make the student aware of any safety concerns and issues that may arise from the training and for reasonable safe actions within the training. There is the personal responsibility of the individual that also must be put forth and the individual must be made aware of. I have had people stress, twist, or sprain ankles and knees from doing simple footwork drills. I.e. walking triangles, doing turning drills like Chum Kiu.

You do the best you are able to address the possibilities injury up front, work to not hurt someone during training but injuries can and will happen. As others have already stated, if you didn't feel bad about a student getting hurt that would be a problem.

 

[Ken Morgan]

**** happens.
Outside of bruises, nothing serious, thankfully.
In Jodo, you are hitting your opponent with your jo all the time, the trick is to take all the power out of your strike a millisecond before contact. You’re still getting in a solid strike, but it’s nothing compared to what it would be “on the street”. Practicing like that you always come out of class with bruises, and you are expected to stand there and take the strikes.

 

[jks9199]

Any martial art, aside from marksmanship, is a demanding physical pursuit. Injuries WILL happen. My Sifu says "Two things will happen in sparring, you will get hit and it WILL hurt." I wouldn't limit that just to sparring.
I'd tell you not to feel bad, but, that is impossible. The best you can do is be careful in what you do, and be aware of the inherent dangers involved.

Marksmanship can certainly be physically demanding, and you can get hurt. Hot brass falling down your shirt is just one risk, without getting into catastrophic failures causing the gun to go BOOM in your hand...

But back on topic -- Injuries are a risk. But they shouldn't be routine or the result of carelessness or negligence. I popped my knee in a situation similar to the one described by Geezer. I've had bruises and bumps and even got stitches on several occasions. But those the more serious injury incidents were the exceptions, not the rule. I do all I can to avoid causing injury to students. Note that injury is not the same as discomfort or pain... Bruises happen. Even some minor sprains. But injuries that require more serious treatment should be rare.

 

[David43515]

As others have said, these are combat sports and the potential for injury is real. But I think the reason serious injuries are far less common than in the sports commonly played by school sports teams (at least in my experience) is because we know that the potential is there and we`re extra careful about it. In 30+ years of training and occational teaching I`ve injured students 3 times (bruised kidney, split lip, and 2 broken fingers). I was injured "by" a teacher just once His elbow block to my sidekick bruised a bone and made walking pretty painfull for a few weeks. Sprains , strains,bruises, and such are the stuff of everyday training but are usually self inflicted. They shouldn`t be common but they happen. Serious injuries inflicted by others should be VERY rare or you shouldn`t be training with that person.

 

[crushing]

It happens. My TKD instructor hyper-extended my elbow whilst performing an arm bar. I am bigger than he and stupidly thought I could muscle my way out and refused to tap. He let go when he heard and felt three pops and immediately asked me if that was my elbow or his cup.

He wasn't a bully and he didn't mess up. I violated the trust by not tapping. I paid for it for a few months until the pain was gone.

 

[ETinCYQX]

Yes, it happens IMO. I broke my toe rolling with a visiting Sensei and I usually leave TKD sparring classes sore and bruised. Spar with my instructor more often than anyone else and he makes sure I know I just fought.

I'd think pretty highly of an instructor who called to check up on me, too, and I wouldn't blame you for this incident.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Injuries happen in all physical activities. That is just the reality of how our world works. It is terrible when someone gets injured but it does happen and will continue to happen. You just have to do your best and try hard so that it doesn't happen regularly.

 

[Balrog]

My instructor walloped me in sparring, I've walloped my students. Sooner or later, you're gonna run into a sidekick; it's a given. But we have never injured anyone. Bruises and getting the wind knocked out of you is part of it.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

My instructor had his rib broken by a 4th dan recently when demo-ing something in front of the class. They both go pretty hard all the time and so things like this will happen occasionally. I dislocated my thumb when an assistant instructor was showing me some kick defences, I went to grab the leg and just heard "crack".

 

[Aiki Lee]

My instructor has never caused an injury to anyone as far as I know.

Me and a few others have though. IMO Injuries are usually caused by people going too fast either out of fear of the chaotic situation of randori or in a poor attempt to impress the instructors or in a misunderstood idea of doing "serious" training.

The rare injuries we get in our dojo are usually self inflicted by having poor ukemi and resisting a technique when they should just go with it.

Everyone here seems to have the right idea when it comes to the inevitibility of being injured at one point. I've learned very important lessons everytime i've been hurt or accidentally hurt another person through carelessness.

We had a blackbelt once who would always go super hard when everyone was supposed to be hitting at like 30%, and actually injured himself by hitting a person too hard. He began working with smaller people and kids and his control increased significantly where he now catches himself when he is being too rough and can slow down.

 

[geezer]

IMO Injuries are usually caused by people going too fast either out of fear of the chaotic situation of randori or in a poor attempt to impress the instructors or in a misunderstood idea of doing "serious" training.

The rare injuries we get in our dojo are usually self inflicted by having poor ukemi and resisting a technique when they should just go with it.

I would agree with both observations. As a follow up on the OP, my student with the torqued knee was back in class last night and able to participate. So things are looking up.

As for myself, I've been injured many times in several sports I've done over the years. That's my choice. I just don't want my carelessness to injure others, so I'm resolving to be more cautious these days.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Reading the thread on "Bully Instructors"... I got to wondering, how often do injuries occur in training, and of those injuries, do they ever happen when working with an instructor?

I ask this because I screwed up in class last week. My art (WC) is essentially a striking art, but we do have plenty of leg-checks, sweeps and throws. I was showing some intermediate students how to close, grapple and throw. The demo went fine, but we don't have mats and so we have to let the other guy down easy. Some of the students have a natural uneasiness about going down backwards to the floor... and we haven't spent enough time on falling, especially on hard surfaces. I think this is a big part of the the problem. Anyway, for whatever reason, when I was working with one of the students, he got into a weird position and popped something in his knee as he went down. He got up and walked it off, but pretty much had to sit out the rest of class. Then when he missed the next class a couple of days later, I knew something was wrong. I called him today and his knee was still troubling him. I drove over to his house and gave him one of my old knee braces (I've had a lot of injuries over the years) and recommended that he get it checked out.

The problem is that he's and older guy (just a few years younger than I am), does a physically demanding job (electrician) and is self-employed with no medical insurance. So if this turns out to be serious, he's screwed. And it's my fault. So I'm feeling like an idiot. On one hand, when teaching I've never claimed to be a "master", and in the real world, stuff happens. On the other hand, as an instructor, I am responsible for my students safety. Period. Any thoughts?

Train real martial arts and you will get hurt.

But with that said, several years ago I was working with a woman that was a friend of mine (and still is) on Tuishou (push hands) and I found myself automatically responding to what she did with Cao (basically hitting with my shoulder) she went backwards and fell hard, I tried to catch them but missed and they got hurt. She got up, said she would be fine and limped over to the side. This was in my first sifu’s class and I had been training with my second sifu for a while by that time and had gotten use to the level of Tuishou in my second sifu’s class. My fisrt sifu wanted me to help teach push hands so I did. After that however I decided to stop teaching anything there and that coupled with other issues I stopped training there all together.

This was years ago and I still feel bad about it… but train MA and you will get hurt, train it long enough you will eventually hurt someone else unintentionally.

 

[searcher]

I have been injured by all of my instructors and I have injured all of them as well.

I have injured some of my students and some of them have injured me as well.

We have never had anything serious(broken arm, broken nose, busted lip,...) and all injuries are watched over very closely. If something happens, we try to find out exactly how it happened and fix the "hole" in the student's defense. We are a very heavy contact school and our students know this before they sign up. Some leave due to the heavy contact and seek instruction elsewhere. We are fine with that and they are better off in the long run. Does this make us wrong in our views? We don't think so. Our school is not for everyone and that is fine. We don't fit in at other schools and that is fine.

Injuries happen and we wish they did not. It is a part of a contact sport, just like football or hockey.

 

[Supra Vijai]

Have I been injured by my instructors? Yes. Usually it's bruising or sprains and nothing more serious with my current instructor. He holds back just enough so that I know I just got hit but not hard enough to break anything. That, I assume is as a result of decades of practice being on both ends of the tech. Also he has a policy that you don't do anything to students that you haven't had done to you already so that probably plays a part in it.

I have had my nose broken during a tech by another senior who was my 2nd instructor and I don't hold it against him at all. I went in hard and fast with the attack and he responded hard and fast (unarmed against a sword attack to give context) and all it did for me was prove the technique worked. I would have no issues at all if I did get injured though, it's what I signed up for and if I ever had to use this stuff on the street I carry the expectation I will get hurt so may as well experience it and learn to get over it in a safe environment. IMO anyway

If the student is question is back into training with you, I'd take that as a pretty safe bet that he doesn't hold anything against you either and respects your skills and abilities