Some things I have learned since becoming a TKD instructor...

[skribs]

When I was a kid, I did TKD for about 4 years, ended up with a green belt before I quit to do school sports. I started up again just over 2 years ago at white belt. I quickly got my blue belt (tested every time we did testing, even though some people skipped a test or two until they were ready), and right around then one of the instructors quit. My master asked me if I wanted to be an instructor. I started helping out with most of the classes, and got put on an accelerated path towards black belt. The minimum to get black belt at my school is 2.5 years, I did it in 23 months, and got my black belt in June.

Since I started teaching, I have learned a lot of lessons. I thought I'd share my thoughts with all of you:

1. Sometimes the fat person is the most agile person in the room.
2. Just because someone looks fit, doesn't mean they are.
3. The guy who looks incredibly sloppy in forms and has no idea what he's doing on combinations may be VERY good at sparring. Especially if he's older.
   
4. The least coordinated white belt may be one of the better purple belts.
5. I have no idea how my Master does it, but the kids definitely learn how to be respectful, as evidenced by some of the white belts I have seen their first couple of classes compared to their yellow belt test (this is why he is Master and I am Assistant Instructor).
6. (NOTE: I have no prior experience working with kids, and I am not a parent). Kids will ask the darndest questions. For example "what is puberty like?"
7. Dancers can make really good martial artists.
   
8. I am more nervous judging tests than taking them.
9. This one needs the story: there was a three year old girl who saw a bee fly into the classroom and she was scared of this bee; so scared that she couldn't even pay attention to class. She wasn't listening, wasn't practicing, just watching the bee. So I told her "don't bother it, and it won't bother you." She smiled and ignored the bee, and went back to taking class. Ten seconds later the bee flew at me. All I could think as I dove to the ground in terror was how big of a hypocrite I am.
   
10. My Master is smarter than I thought. I relearn this one every day, and I thought he was pretty smart to begin with. When I was a lowly yellow belt, I thought I could teach easy. After all, you just tell people to do what you already know, right? How wrong I was! It took me a while to get to the point where I could lead something right (by "right" I mean so the kids understand what I am telling them, and so that my teaching style helps energize the class) and even longer to get to where I could do a whole class on my own.
    He's also shared a lot of his wisdom with me, both how he runs his classes (which gives me great advice on how to teach) and on life itself. He is the pastor at his church, and he has a lot of wisdom to offer.

These are just some of the thoughts/stories I've had since I started teaching, and thought I would share. Hopefully there's some laughter to be had.

 

[TrueJim]

Here's the most interesting thing I've seen...

We have a handful of kids/teens who are really awkward in their techniques. Our instructors often just let them be for the most part, only infrequently making a comment about the errors of their techniques. At first, this confused me. The kids were practicing the same bad technique over and over and over again for months, shouldn't this be a bad thing?

Then over time, I noticed some of these kids suddenly "got it." All of a sudden, their technique suddenly started to look pretty good, even though nobody had been working directly on fixing their errors. It's as if the mere fact that they were repeating the techniques over and over - even incorrectly - somehow made the techniques suddenly click correctly. I've seen this phenomenon repeated a number of times now. I don't understand why this works, but apparently it does? Just have the person keep trying over and over again even if they're doing it wrong: they'll spontaneously self-correct a lot more frequently than you'd imagine.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Proprioception is the mind's ability to determine where the limbs are spacialy without looking at them. This ability varies among people and is often a lot less in children and develops as they get older. For static positions people can compensate by looking at their own position. Ls harder to do for dynamic motion. Sometimes the ability develops slowly and for kids, as the mind develops it can be like a switch was turned on.

 

[TrueJim]

That, and I suspect maybe also my instructors are smart enough to know which kids already know that their technique is bad, and so rather than hounding them about it, they just let them get to it into their own time.

For example, we have one young teenager with a slight learning disability whose roundhouse kicks looked more like a horribly awkward front kicks. It was painful to watch him practice; cringeworthy. But there he was, week after week, month after month, in line with all the other kids doing kicking drills against the kicking-shields. The instructors rarely commented on how cringeworthy his kicks were. But then suddenly, one day, a couple months ago, all of a sudden his kicks started to look like roundhouse kicks! Now they're not too shabby at all! It's as if (a) like you said, his proprioception just needed to catch up with his desire; and (b) he already knew his kicks weren't right, and the instructors were smart enough to know that he already knew, and they wise enough to not nag him about it.

That's totally not how I would have handled the situation. I would have been afraid he'd develop really bad muscle-memory that would be hard for him to retrain. I would have tried to be more preemptive, and I would have spent a ton of time with him, trying to get him to get his kicks right. In retrospect, maybe that might have worked, but (a) it would have required a big investment of my time, and (b) he might have eventually grown weary of trying & failing, and become demotivated. Their approach turned out to be really smart: go ahead, let him practice it wrong, as long as he keeps trying he'll eventually get it right, he'll remain motivated to keep trying, and we won't spend a ton of time trying to correct a single student.

I never would have suspected that what they were doing would work. But I've seen it work a number of times now with a number of different students. I learned a valuable lesson from that: sometimes, just let them keep doing it wrong, they'll figure it out eventually on their own.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Couple things to consider about 'those kids'...
Correction is good. Correction is necessary. But too much of it results in frustration and a feeling of being overwhelmed. This leads to quitting. An occasional pointer and (more importantly) positive feedback when there is some improvement, works. I suspect that's what you saw.

Odds are that the student knows their technique needs to improve, even if you're not telling them. One thing I've noticed is that the worse we perform a technique, the more variance there is from one repetition to another. And when we do hit the sweet spot for the technique, it just plain feels better. A kick will suddenly move the bag (or the bag holder). We want to repeat that feeling, so we keep trying. And the more often we hit that sweet spot, the easier it becomes to repeat it. So the technique gradually becomes more consistent, and more consistently correct. When I see a student who has been struggling to get a technique right actually do it right, I often ask them if they can feel the difference. They usually can.

 

[Gwai Lo Dan]

Couple things to consider about 'those kids'...
Correction is good. Correction is necessary. But too much of it results in frustration and a feeling of being overwhelmed..

Very true. Personally I think schools provide far too little instruction and correction. They show, then rarely offer detailed instruction and correction. For me, I found myself watching Kwonkicker and Aaron Gassor videos for detailed instruction, and practicing on my BOB at home. That's ridiculous IMO when I was paying $110/month for lessons.

There is a balance. There is no point providing more correction and instruction than a person can assimilate.

With that said, a white belt once asked me (a blue belt at the time) for instruction on his turning kick (roundhouse). He was thankful for my help and extremely frustrated that lessons were not TEACHING him, but just giving a place to practice and try on his own. He quit after the 30 day intro month.

Many years later, at my current club tonight, a person asked me about her spinning hook kick. I was happy to offer a detailed, specific correction, which improved her kick.She commented that I really thought about the details of the kick. I was tempted to say, "no, that's Aaron Gassor's thoughts!".

Although I am a BB, I really feel that it is the instructor's place to instruct, not mine. Nonetheless, if someone asks me, I am more than happy to offer help.

 

[Dirty Dog]

You have to feed it to them a little at a time. Show them a kick, and then tell them "you have to fix this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this, and they're going to be overwhelmed. Especially if they're young.

 

[msmitht]

Positive reinforcement will help more than negative every time

 

[WaterGal]

Very true. Personally I think schools provide far too little instruction and correction. They show, then rarely offer detailed instruction and correction. For me, I found myself watching Kwonkicker and Aaron Gassor videos for detailed instruction, and practicing on my BOB at home. That's ridiculous IMO when I was paying $110/month for lessons.

It's definitely much harder to explain a technique step-by-step in words than to demonstrate and say "do it like this". I think a lot of people, especially new inexperienced instructors, just don't know how to do the former (or maybe don't care to?). It takes skill and experience to develop that, and there's always more to learn in how to teach people. Some people will respond better to one explanation vs another because of their learning style, the specific problem they're having with the technique, etc. So you've always got to be working out different ways to teach the techniques, and fine-tune the details of things.

 

[WaterGal]

Just because someone looks fit, doesn't mean they are.

There's also different kinds of fitness. Some people can run a 5k no problem, but get winded doing a couple rounds of sparring. Or they might be very agile but have no endurance.

(NOTE: I have no prior experience working with kids, and I am not a parent). Kids will ask the darndest questions. For example "what is puberty like?"

Oh man. A few months ago, I had a kid ask me what happens to people when they die. IIRC, her neighbor had recently died of cancer. That was a tough one. It's much easier when they ask me questions like "what would you do if you had to fight the Hulk"?

Dancers can make really good martial artists.

Yeah, people with dance or gymnastic experience tend to do well, I think because they already be flexible, have good core strength, and know how to make their body move in all kinds of different ways.

 

[Earl Weiss]

You have to feed it to them a little at a time. Show them a kick, and then tell them "you have to fix this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this, and they're going to be overwhelmed. Especially if they're young.

View attachment 19480

Even a thirsty man can't drink from a fire hose.

 

[Earl Weiss]

It's definitely much harder to explain a technique step-by-step in words than to demonstrate and say "do it like this". I think a lot of people, especially new inexperienced instructors, just don't know how to do the former (or maybe don't care to?). .

Many teach how they were taught. They don't know how to do anything differently. Many old line instructors did not speak the native language. So, mst of their instruction consisted of "Not like this..... like this" as they demonstrated a wrong way and a correct way. Sadly, students ability to perceive variations and make corrections is limited.

This methodology was so prevelant I know someone who put 2 photos side by side on the Dojang wall with the caption above them : "Not like this..... like this".
The photos are identical.

 

[Thousand Kicks]

Positive reinforcement will help more than negative every time

I would disagree with this. All students are a little different and that means there is no universal way to motivate them.

Some students respond to negative reinforcement by trying harder in an effort to prove you wrong or show you what they're capable of. Some students become disheartened when hearing negative reinforcement.

Some students see positive reinforcement as confimation that you're paying attention and care about their progress. Some students see continual positive reinforcement as patronizing.

I always start with being more positive about instruction. After you've trained with somebody for a while you figure out which buttons to push to get more out of them. But it only comes with time and experience.

To be clear I am not saying that screaming or insulting a student is ever appropriate. That is not what I am calling negative reinforcement.

 

[Balrog]

Positive reinforcement will help more than negative every time

Ummm....let's say 99% of the time.

You can, and should, do positive reinforcement whenever possible. However, there is absolutely nothing that compares with a kick to the head for helping students learn to keep their guard up.

 

[Earl Weiss]

However, there is absolutely nothing that compares with a kick to the head for helping students learn to keep their guard up.

General Choi had a favorite saying:

"Pain is a wonderful instructor.....but no one wants to go to his class."

 

[Andrew Green]

Here's the most interesting thing I've seen...

We have a handful of kids/teens who are really awkward in their techniques. Our instructors often just let them be for the most part, only infrequently making a comment about the errors of their techniques. At first, this confused me. The kids were practicing the same bad technique over and over and over again for months, shouldn't this be a bad thing?

It's like trying to teach a toddler proper sprinting technique or how to throw a curve ball, it's just not the right time. As strength, co-ordinatrion and body awareness improve things can be fine tuned. But trying to fine tune something the person is just not physically capable of yet is just going to frustrate them. If they are doing it reasonably close, they are building the strength and body awareness associated with the action, you can start making small improvements over time. But trying to teach someone a perfect kick right away is something most people just don't have the muscle control to even accomplish from the start.

More important is that they are doing it, and having fun. Otherwise it turns into basically a weeding out process, which is not what I think martial arts should be about (unless you are a fight gym that focuses only on competition).

 

[Touch Of Death]

When I was a kid, I did TKD for about 4 years, ended up with a green belt before I quit to do school sports. I started up again just over 2 years ago at white belt. I quickly got my blue belt (tested every time we did testing, even though some people skipped a test or two until they were ready), and right around then one of the instructors quit. My master asked me if I wanted to be an instructor. I started helping out with most of the classes, and got put on an accelerated path towards black belt. The minimum to get black belt at my school is 2.5 years, I did it in 23 months, and got my black belt in June.

Since I started teaching, I have learned a lot of lessons. I thought I'd share my thoughts with all of you:

1. Sometimes the fat person is the most agile person in the room.
2. Just because someone looks fit, doesn't mean they are.
3. The guy who looks incredibly sloppy in forms and has no idea what he's doing on combinations may be VERY good at sparring. Especially if he's older.
   
4. The least coordinated white belt may be one of the better purple belts.
5. I have no idea how my Master does it, but the kids definitely learn how to be respectful, as evidenced by some of the white belts I have seen their first couple of classes compared to their yellow belt test (this is why he is Master and I am Assistant Instructor).
6. (NOTE: I have no prior experience working with kids, and I am not a parent). Kids will ask the darndest questions. For example "what is puberty like?"
7. Dancers can make really good martial artists.
   
8. I am more nervous judging tests than taking them.
9. This one needs the story: there was a three year old girl who saw a bee fly into the classroom and she was scared of this bee; so scared that she couldn't even pay attention to class. She wasn't listening, wasn't practicing, just watching the bee. So I told her "don't bother it, and it won't bother you." She smiled and ignored the bee, and went back to taking class. Ten seconds later the bee flew at me. All I could think as I dove to the ground in terror was how big of a hypocrite I am.
   
10. My Master is smarter than I thought. I relearn this one every day, and I thought he was pretty smart to begin with. When I was a lowly yellow belt, I thought I could teach easy. After all, you just tell people to do what you already know, right? How wrong I was! It took me a while to get to the point where I could lead something right (by "right" I mean so the kids understand what I am telling them, and so that my teaching style helps energize the class) and even longer to get to where I could do a whole class on my own.
    He's also shared a lot of his wisdom with me, both how he runs his classes (which gives me great advice on how to teach) and on life itself. He is the pastor at his church, and he has a lot of wisdom to offer.

These are just some of the thoughts/stories I've had since I started teaching, and thought I would share. Hopefully there's some laughter to be had.

I enjoyed reading this.

 

[Gwai Lo Dan]

Dancers can make really good martial artists.

There's a young woman who started up after a year absence. She doesn't have the most coordinated spinning hook kick, but she has such ease in kicking high. I need to do the "right" technique to do the kick. She can make it a half spinning hook, half spinning crescent, because she has no limitations in flexibility. It's impressive.

 

[Gwai Lo Dan]

View attachment 19480

I tried teaching the arm movement this week to a yellow belt. She is not the most athletic....it was a lot more challenging to teach it than I would have thought.

 

[Milo of Croton]

I'm an assistant instructor at the local gym, and I often take the same approach to newer students just getting started with wrestling. Over time, and with a lot of repetition and training, most students seem to self-correct and eventually ease into the technique, as if their bodies continuously correct their posture, etc. to settle into the most efficient movement pattern for executing said technique. Also very empowering for them, as opposed to being constantly corrected.