Challenging my students:

I tried something new tonight with my class.  Leaning on my experience as a musician, I decided to ask the students to pick a spot on the dojo floor and to do their testing kata.  In music, there are times when a certain passage of your piece will cause you troubles. You pull that passage out, slow it down, and do it properly over and over again to improve it.

I went to each student and picked only one small segment of their kata that I felt needed improvement.  I instructed the student to do this small series of movements slowly over and over again without stopping. They were to focus on achieving a smooth rhythm, and proper technique building up to regular speed until I returned to them.  They could not change to anything else, but just do that movement over and over.  I allowed a good amount of time to go by.. about 6 minutes.. then I returned to the student to see if there was improvement on that segment.  If there was, I gave them another set of movements from their kata that I wanted corrected and left them to do that repetitively on their own motivation.  This whole sequence of events took approximately 30 minutes to accomplish.

This class did not make my students sweat with effort, but it sure did demand everything that they had mentally.  I could see them stopping their work, and staring blankly with a touch of boredom into the distance, and then refocusing, and continuing their effort.  This class did not entertain, or even keep the mind occupied. It was repetitive, and simple, and the mind would tune out. It took personal will and determination to bring the mind
back into the equation. It totally relied on their own inner motivation to accomplish this task.

I stopped the class, and lined them up. Then I called each student up front individually and informed the class as to the two sections of their kata that these students had been working on. The challenge was now to incorporate the corrected movements into their performance.  I warned the students that if I see the previous mistakes, I would call out "yame", and the student would have to restart their kata. They only had 3 chances to
pull it all together.  I could see their eyes focus with intensity as they challenged themselves to achieve this goal.  The majority of my students succeeded in adjusting those parts of their kata to include the improvements.

I had mercy on the students in the last 15 minutes by taking control again and leading them through a stretching sequence.  The whole time I spoke about the history of Sensei Gichin Funakoshi, and how he had to spend 3 years training on only one kata over and over again.  I mentioned that in the brown belt level, the only kata you are taught is Bassai Dai, and there comes a point mentally where you feel " Can't I do any other kata than this one???"   Yet, karate is about repetition. It's about doing a movement so many times that your body can do it by reflex.  You will not need to think, you will just do.  To achieve this is to be able to ask your body to do the same kick, same punch, same set of movements over and over again.  One thing that repetition will do for you: It will cause you to ask yourself "Is this activity worth the effort?"

On different thoughts, I attended a mandatory Instructor's safety course put on by my city's recreation program this week.

Although most of the information was not regarding karate, karate training, or karate teaching, I found much value in some of the suggestions, and information given to me.

For example, if you teach in a community center, church, or school facility, it is a good idea to get familiar with with custodians of your facility. They are an intricate part of your classes as in they take care of your area the majority of the time.They are indispensable for things such as helping you get in if you lose your keys, warning you of other events ahead of time, helping you find your equipment should it have been displaced, etc.

Write down incident reports for yourself after important moments that happen in your dojo.  Should a student fall down hard, get struck severely, and/ or get injured, or should you be approached with verbal or physical attack, write down notes on the details as to what happened, when it happened, who was involved, what you did to address the issue, and who was contacted.  Keep track of any witnesses that saw what happened, and jot down their names also.

Be familiar with the emergency responses already in place in your facility, and have a plan ahead of time for your students should there be a need to respond to something such as a fire alarm.

It is a great idea for a Sensei ( Martial arts instructor) to attend a First Aid/ CPR class.  They may never need to use this information, but since they are working with children, adults, and seniors, it is a good thing to have some knowledge of this information.

I'm glad that I attended this safety course.  It was just a few hours out of my day, and I walked away pre-warned of many things that could save me headaches, and heartaches in the future.

One thing that I learned in this course which shocked me was that four times a year, I have to hand out class evaluation forms to my students for them to comment on my teaching, and the facility, etc.

I've never heard of such a thing in the Martial arts realms.  The students commenting on the Sensei's teaching? What? The students rating the Sensei on a scale from 1 to 10? Wow! I couldn't fathom it: Going to a seminar with an 8th Dan Master, and being handed a "How was my teaching?" form.  Nope.. doesn't click well in my head. I can't see it happening.  Usually, in Martial arts, I've noticed that the attitude is more one of "you don't like my teaching.. there's the door..".

I have to shake my head at this new idea.  Luckily I'm a beginning Sensei, and I can wrap my mind around the thoughts of having positive and negative comments coming from my students.  O.K.. I'm willing to try it.  It's like jumping off of a diving board into deep water not knowing where the rocks are, but I'm willing to risk it.

Mireille