Uechi-Ryu.com

All of us have had various teachers teach us, be it karate or some other subject matter. Some teachers we can learn from and some, we cannot...either the teacher's fault or ours....maybe the environment we are in.

That said, think about those teachers that you felt were great.

What is, in your opinion, the criteria that makes a great teacher?

If you are a teacher, what are some pitfalls that teachers should be aware of in themselves and in their students?

Regards,
Vicki

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"Cry in the dojo, laugh in the battlefield"

First of all to be a teacher ,of say uechi-ryu some experience of real fights could be vital in passing on the system in a realistic long term mannerism ,were you are getting your students to realise in no uncertain terms the realites of a fight .
And the movements should move forewards to bridge the gap between artifical and real ,real accounts for escalating levels of serious in your face violence, such as facing someone who is going all out to put you in your early coffin .

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max ainley

It's kind of a hard question to answer, because it is tempered with hindsight.
My Jiu-Jitsu teacher ,when I was young was really good..he was 6 th dan Shotokan ( unheard of at that time)......and he taught me to move fast....right from the getgo .......with him you didn't have to wait for lots of coloured belts and badges.at yellow belt he had us jumping into throws and whacking folks down on the mat.....a good first teacher .................I see a lot of folks who think that somehow Magically when they get to blackbelt they will move fast ....and even more who think that they move fast ( even though they don't) .because they have a blackbelt .....after that I trained with some poor people and some very good....the good all cross trained .....and that's the case even now....and they all have passion and fear in equal measure...they all worry that they don't move quick enough or punch hard enough, and they are all easy going and pleasant.......the most talented folks that I know don't have belts either....although most of the people who seek them out have a dan ranking or two

i started teaching at an early age. my first instructor actually "taught" me how to teach. i started like an Ed Mcman next to Johnny and did the warm ups and he would direct me to take new students aside and show them certain things. he always had me in the corner of his eye and chewed me out when i screwed up.
i think patience is a big factor.
also having taught long before i was ready ,i can say a good teacher has years and years of experience. far enough ahead in the learning curve to know what might happen down the road for students and keep them from the dark side ha ha ha haha.

I think a good teacher does what a good leader does: provides purpose, direction, and motivation.

Jeff Cook

In my first post ,a understanding of violence was first ,but it could have been any attribute that highlights certain qualites that make up a teacher ,but take away this understanding of violence ,sort of dismiss it ,and lots of what the teacher passes on becomes artifical ,a bit like those artifical plastic flowers arranged with painstaking interest ,looks good as a copy ,but the major problem is; they are ready made to resemble reality .

So the good teacher avoids like the plauge the artifical[my viewpoint ] but it can be argued endlessly something artifical can be brought to life and put to the fight ["but you fight as you train" ] the only problem with this qoute is; it is not 100% full proof ,because of the underlying deep rooted patterns that lay dorment and surface to destroy so called good teacher trainings ,and the dormant becomes the dominant force,and all that training can go down the toilet ,because deep down you already knew how to deal with violence maybe in basic formats ,but because your training was artifical to these innate animalistic drives they never emerged to back up and in more [required levels of violent threat let one down very badly .

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max ainley

I've seen no evidence of Kanei Uechi having an real fighting encounters like his father did, but yet he was a great teacher.
To me this is like saying to be a great History teacher and to teach about the Revolutionary War you must have been alive in the 1770's.
As a young man I had some fighting encounters where I used Karate, but I don't feel they make me a better teacher. I mostly wonder if I could have handled it differently, or been more aware.
What makes me a decent teacher is building strength, confidence and increasing the skills of my students, and my goal to make them better than I. What also I feel helps me to be a teacher, is the fact that I am a student, who still has a lot to learn.

Beware of the teacher who knows it all and is closed off to new ideas or interpretations.

F.

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Sans Peur Ne Obliviscaris
www.hinghamkarate.com

The teachers I felt were 'great', vs 'good at teaching', were those that seemed to share the material as if it was the first time they ever did so, and when they were teaching, you felt as if 'you' were really being seen.

An enthusiasm that embues the moment with a dynamism.

I don't know if Kanei had fights etc, but if you look at my first post it mentions that having a knowledge of violence may help you the teacher ,its not dogmatic and states you must have the fighting violent background ,my point is quite simple it could help the teacher become a great teacher of things that work in what he passes on as self defence , but to re clarify this is not a absolute .

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max ainley

I think that you must have some real experience of violence to be able to teach about it. As the saying goes
" Those who can do, do!!...those who can't teach"

I have been to lots of schools where the teachers didn't have a clue about fighting at all....and to be honest it is something quite seperate from an ability in karate or whatever...to actually know what violence is.and if you do a fighting art, then to know how you will react..........I had lots of fights when I was a youngster, but very few ( thankfully ) as I've gotten older. So I honestly don't know if I could teach folks how to fight, certainly my empty hand skills are layered upon the skills I developed as a youngster, I've also trained in weapons but never used one on anyone and in a sense that to is layered upon what I learned as a youngster..but without having the background that I had I don't think that I would have ever bothered with martial arts..........I've looked for years to find one that I thought actually taught some real skills.......now there are a few styles out there that do that, but so many more that teach rubbish. Now how do you develop a critical eye to know one from the other? and how can you tell if a teacher has developed his art by adding stuff or taking stuff away? what criteria do you use. I use generally very simple rules based upon the early fights.

as an example one guy at a school I went to said get in a good stance so I put a boxers guard up and started moving on the balls of my feet, he said NO!! a GOOD STANCE.........I asked him to explain and he had me in a long low stance with my hands hanging by my hips ....anyways I got to sparr non-contact with his best blackbelt and using his GOOD stance I was getting whupped so I switched to my ole boxers crouch and started whupping his top man ...and all the while I was beating this guy the teacher was shouting at me to get in a good stance

but then again back in the real world, lessons learned from my job..I've known ( not personally) people stick push daggers in a guys face for not serving beer..and in one case a guy getting shot in the head at close range with a shotgun for the same thing......so there is a big world out there and lots of skills to know and first you have to know what skills they are:wink:

The best teachers I have had, in any subject, are people that are truly excited about thier subject AND good at breaking it down or approaching it from multiple directions. They were very engaged with their students and constantly working to make sure most people were getting something from the lesson (although, not always the same thing).

I agree with many here who state that hands on experience help improve the information a teacher has to impart, but I don't think that makes a great teacher.

You can be the smartest person or most knowledgeable person in the world, but if you cannot convey the knowledge you hold, then you are not a great teacher.

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Live True, Laugh often
Shana

I guess that depends on how you look at martial arts, most folks think they are learning self defence, I think very few actually are.
Another thing to think about is some of the best instruction that I have had has been by truly scary individuals in truly scary dojos ...where I had to step way out of my comfort zone.
I guess at the end of the day you have to ask what the teacher is teaching.
A lot of them do believe that they are teaching fighting.....and I've seen some dreadful examples of this in Aikido clubs ....One guy I knew gave a demonstration.he wanted it to look realistic and asked this other guy to punch him hard as he could in the face...so,come the day he stood there all cocky and confident, his sensei had told him that a punch was just like Shomen ( downward chop to the head)........the guy attacked and floored him with one blow...they couldn't stop his nose bleeding and he had to be taken off the mat with a couple of hundred spectators watching
.he had unquestioningly believed what sensei had said...maybe sensei had never had a fight either

im trying to be respectfull of others opinions but i think some here are begining to argue over the subject matter rather then the delivery.

defence , real life fighting, kata queens, experience or not.. that is a good topic but it is a reflection of the material not the presentation.

a good teacher teaches, its up to the student on what he does with it and where his interests lead him on his path, and what venue he wants to persue. i would say 90% of karate students have no TRUE interest in getting in fights. they want a group activity, something to loose some weight and make them feel confident and karate looks neat and fun...
so maybe YOU want reality but lets not forget other people are entiteld to their oun paths.

At the simplest level teaching is about example - demonstrating what you want the student to do and making corrections to the technique or movement until the copy more and more closely resembles the demonstration. The teacher takes responsibility for the training.

Then its about explaining the `why’ so that the student can understand how to apply the action effectively.

At another level it is about inspiring and motivating and challenging the student to continue to exert themselves, to ask questions and to want to learn more.

At another level teaching is about helping the student to make the mind and body connections that lead to greater understanding and improvement – helping the aha moments to happen.

So the student can take responsibility for their training, very circular!

Teachers are good at different things but I think the very best teachers somehow do all these things at once.

Hmm think its all about example actually.

[quote="hoshin"]im trying to be respectfull of others opinions but i think some here are begining to argue over the subject matter rather then the delivery.

defence , real life fighting, kata queens, experience or not.. that is a good topic but it is a reflection of the material not the presentation.

a good teacher teaches, its up to the student on what he does with it and where his interests lead him on his path, and what venue he wants to persue. i would say 90% of karate students have no TRUE interest in getting in fights. they want a group activity, something to loose some weight and make them feel confident and karate looks neat and fun...



We could name any attribute that a teacher needs to start a topic of ,and there will be the odd argument what is needed and what is missing .

When I was invited on to this forum by Gem Sensei I pushed the slow patient attribute from the teacher viewpoint ,more in keeping with forum policy " Tell us what you are doing ,not what we should be doing" so I pushed that line ,I thought too that new perspectives were added to the attribute ,yet in lots of cases things were shot down in flames Why post anything? its rare nowadays I post anything on the slow patient way or even talk about it in martial circles .
So I went to the opposite end away from patience and slow .

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max ainley