We have several new students, and I would like to take a quick moment to discuss my philosophy on teaching kids martial arts.
First off, let me explain what I am not. I am not a militaristic disciplinarian. It’s just not in my nature. I’ve tried it before, and it doesn’t fit my personality. This does not mean I do not teach discipline in my classes. But we grow into discipline. I find that discipline and respect are much more genuine when they are grown into, instead of just demanded.
I do not demand perfection of technique from day one. First off, no one comes into martial arts being able to do every technique to perfection, it is a growing process. When teaching a new technique, my first goal is to get each student to do just do it. Good, bad, or ugly. Then we try to make a small correction to make it a little better. Slowly, the students will make small incremental changes until they are able to perform the technique perfectly.
As an example, let me explain the basic roundhouse kick. For a perfect roundhouse kick you must first turn your supporting foot outside so the inside of that foot faces your target, start turning with your hips as you lift your kicking leg off of the floor, bring the arms up to make sure you are covering your head while also using them to gain the necessary momentum for maximum power, bring your hips around making sure your leg does not get in front of your hips or you will lose the power you have generated to this point, strike the target with the area between the middle top of your foot to the first four inches of the bottom of your shin, continue through with your kick, still making sure your leg does not get in front of your hips and finally landing back all the way around in the stance you started the kick from. There are a lot of little parts that make up a perfect kick.
If I were to try to drop that on a student all at once, that student would feel like it was impossible to be able to do even a simple kick like the roundhouse kick. And yet, by the time they are black belts they can do jump spinning kicks, something far greater in difficulty than just a basic roundhouse kick.
I could go on, but I do not want to bore you. I have developed my teaching philosophy from learning martial arts from my instructor (I have trained with many instructors since, and honestly he is the best instructor I have ever trained under), and from my own experience of teaching for now over seventeen years.
If you have any questions regarding my teaching philosophy, please do not hesitate to ask.