molding the student vs student motivation

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maxwell ainley
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Post by maxwell ainley »

To make progress we must attend firstly ,secondly a principle of learning needs to be within the fabric of individual progression ,or your group as a whole .

As a uechi teacher I really need the student to attend ,because no matter how good I claim the methods I impart to be ,they are moribund and stagnant with out attention to attendance ,in other words your input is vital ,are you gonna turn up ? ok you are willing to come a couple a days per week ,or even one day ,modern life? .

Originally as a uechi helper , I was totally rigid I demanded seven days attendance or a least a sick note from a docter type of attitude for absence ,I even insisted they keep up the syllabus even on holiday abroad , I did not wish to see signs of rust on coming back ,the next time they came under my beady eyes.

Keep the kettle boiling attitude from day one ,with this attitude I lost upwards of two hundred people ,and the silly thing I never batted a eye brow at this state of affairs ,
So I one day realised there must be a weening in period ,and ample doses of flexibility ,I originally expected every one to be dead keen about uechi ,my mistake was I did not allow interest to build up ,in other words I did not really understand human beings ,and their problems of inertia and loyalty ,and a loyal attitude developed towards a facinating endevour that is uechi-ryu .

Two days a week is not really inertia ,yet its an accomplishment , I can build from this ,one reason my dojo doors were open all day for a student to come and increase on input ,I have always valued from day one a student taking a lesson I have imparted home, [homework] originally this was a demand on my part .

One reason I value homework is my constant observation of the students growing or stagnant attention to memory develpment ,in conjunction to how I unpeel say the sanchin concept ,and over the course of years I create a flow of backtracking to their very first day ,on this memory development .

max.
max ainley
hoshin
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Post by hoshin »

i usually would not want to hijack a thread but this one seems to have answered the original question so i hope others do not mind i continue in the direction Max has started.
_____________________________________________________________________

Max,
while we really know nothing of eachother except for our writings here, i hope you dont mind my expressing a view point of mine.

my views on teaching were similar to yours in the past. however my views have changed as have yours. my observation is that now i no longer feel like "i" am there to mold a student into a well crafted balck belt. i now feel " the student molds him/her self" the responsibility lies solely on the student. i am only there to impart knowledge. no more no less.
if the student shows up once a month so be it. i do not want to waste my time beating my head on brick walls. i try to encourage, but do not insist on anything. i spell things out very clearly....
you take a step torward me , ill take a step torward you... you dont step , i dont step.
i can give success gaining tools but if they dont use them i dont loose any sleep over it.

my job as a teacher is not to fufill a criteria and standard i hold for myself but rather my job is to give the student what they want. when students dont have their needs met ,they leave. same holds true for any human relationship. if the student is smart and takes my advise they will want the right things. if they dont they end up with an empty cup anyway.
every student will absorb information at different rates. if a student is thirsty for knowledge they will show up more and more.
not every student whats to be a Guru.
not every student wants to be a top class black belt.
i let them be what ever they want to be

steve
~~~~
maxwell ainley
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Post by maxwell ainley »

Daughters computer been out of action , be back soon .


Max.
max ainley
maxwell ainley
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Post by maxwell ainley »

Thanks steve for your input ,you have been there and done it ,and come to your own way of dealing with these matters which makes sense .

I am all for diversity ,even though I relate the methodology that as sustained my on going interest in uechi-ryu ,I dont wish to water down what I do ,along with I can't enforce attendance in the long term .
max ainley
maxwell ainley
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Post by maxwell ainley »

As a teacher of uechi and the owner of my own dojo I don't need numbers to pay the rent ,also I have always been in favor of a small group ,were as when I ran the fitzwilliam dojo there were difficult times once the interest in the methodology nose dived and I would not change to meet the the true needs of the many .

I don't advertise existing by word of mouth alone ,the interest in uechi as never been good and I have no intentions of building a empire .
My ability to motivate as undergone various learning curves ,Initially with the opening and double thrusts my aim and my motivation to others was a total commitment to a leathal technique ,at all costs the mental componant was only in infancy ,as I look back at this learning /motivation /moulding curve ,yes I was moulding ,
and I would say to them" lots of the double thrusts I had witnessed would not knock the skin of a rice pudding ".

In my view this was were the uechi body was first of all given its unique shape ,the opening and thrusts were doubles the most powerfull weapon developers ,I demanded this was brought into fruitation i wanted this in a short time space ,not in ten years time ,if some one wished to go on the weights I countered this by pointing out they are not putting enough energy and effort into this .
max ainley
maxwell ainley
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Post by maxwell ainley »

Having come from wado-ryu and having a superfical understanding of how to motivate and with the uechi-ryu I relate now the problems were very different .

Then I was not a teacher at all ,i did not want to be one ,quite simply people just wanted to do or follow what I had learned ,I was not the patient person then ,but I was also not exactly stupid too, I wanted results and fast no messing around .
I was a highly motivated person from my masonery job ,all our work was more or less on a price ,and it was a tight price,withy little lee way ,motivation had to be there I came home full of ,bubbling with motivation ,we worked fast .
I was all primed up for uechi-ryu and what I thought was most important ,"uechi shape " my fighting eye and instinct told me so ,and the practioners I had seen so far did not have it ,so this could from the instinctive and physical my motivational starting point ,I herd lots of theory about structure etc at the time ,but I was not seeing the shape that really was the structure ,give or take a bit ,and ten years further down the line I still saw no one hereabouts .
I would like to see at least the emergance of the shape ,all my instinct told me the emergance was in the opening to sanchin ,this was a big motivation from my fighting percpective .
max ainley
hoshin
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Post by hoshin »

for my students i use 4 ranks white ,green, brown and black. these have no stripes or mid-way degrees. my own preference would be white until black only, but this does not help the student feel like they are progressing. i too put much emphisis on sanchin during the white and green stages.. however i teach in an asian manner meaning that the student must get a "feel" for the movment and for the style. compared to music if you wanted to learn jazz drum techniques you could not focus only on cymbal placement. you would need to learn the entire kit ( however difficult and badly done at first) also you would need reference counter points like learning rock, blues and funk music. at some point your ear would recognize "oh this is jazz" or this is rock.
a student has to learn that "feel" otherwise they are only robots. from this perspective it would be counter productive to have the student do sanchin steping for three years like Chojun Miyagi used to do. modern students need to know they are getting better and why they are doing what they are doing as well as being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
so yes i have them do many hundred steps and sanchin thrusts but i tell them why and give them other points of reference like a wrist grab defense for example then connect the dots and show them that the sanchin thrust will enhance this techniqe once they do enough thrusts :)

steve
~~~~
hoshin
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Post by hoshin »

the student mind is very fragile in the begining. many will walk through the door for the first time and this in and of itself can be a big emotional risk. i know so many black belts that are just amazed that they made it. on your first day it must seem so overwellming, such a high mountian to clime. i am sure most think at the begining they will NEVER get to black belt. they fail to see the great potential within themselves. it is our job as teachers to unlock this potential. the worst thing would be to feed into their fears and reinforce the idea that they CAN NOT do it.


steve
maxwell ainley
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Post by maxwell ainley »

Diversity of approach .

Again I am all for it ,but at the end of the day we have to get out of a chair and get on to the floor ,in general make effors to attend ,how we each go about this is individual ,my own posts Show highlight certain avenues of what I perceived to be important from a motivational viewpoint at that specific time and place for both me and folk I attempted to aid .

The fighting " Uechi Shape " was for me a big motivater ,and I was convinced it could be acheived in a shorter time along with the weapons the fired from it ,obviously this Shape will mature ,but for me in the short term,this goal was a top priority .
max ainley
maxwell ainley
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Post by maxwell ainley »

From a motivational viewpoint on what I have posted ,a important by product of the physical ,is to wake the body up out of its slumber ,now I did not know this was happening at first .

But the body as to come alive ,wake up ,now looking back this seemed to make more sense than boat loads of theory ,and the body is still in slumber mode ,the mind wants to do it ,but the body soon gives in .

So as mentioned before I am working the senses ,and slightly overiding the intellectual [Diversity ] of approach ,you have to see sense what I am doing [reading skills ] this translates to the fight in direct ways , I motivate down these channels .

I stimulate the body via steering towards its fighting shape [uechi shape] I stimulate the senses ,each body appears to have its own clock or memory etc ,and its possible to wake it up ,so it will work and be less idle .
max ainley
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robb buckland
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Post by robb buckland »

I would love for any student to want to train as diversely and as often as I do but alas.......
" let them be what ever they want to be.........."

I use white , green , brown , black belt for the purpose of rank .
No test fees accept of course for Dan ranks.

I don't promote on regularly scheduled test dates the skill sets we are evaluating should be instinctive by the time a test is administered .

Rank is a measure of dedication , just like a fight is won and lost in the gym...
:wink:
FEARS Ltd
"Art meets Reality"
www.fearsltd.com
maxwell ainley
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Post by maxwell ainley »

Timescales on learning,or reaching a test standard etc seem to vary according to the individual ,we all face this problem as teachers young or older ,at christmas it will be 41 years as a martial artist ,and I am still learning about things of a motivational nature amongst many other facets of things martial .

In my own specific circles from the early days there might be only a handfull left from the mid to late 1960s ,the rise and fallof thousands within local styles is staggering, motivation was high ,it was really a band wagon for many at the various times ,in uechi -ryu local we never got on this bandwagon of growth ,it was always a steady trickle ,never fast .
Every month or so maybe one new student would appear its pretty much similar to this very day .

Normally we would be sought out by people who were curious about uechi , our local circles at mostly given them motivational aspects ,that were never quite right ,most got one thing right ,time was devoted to sanchin ,in one sense motivation was there straight away ,they had come for sanchin ,because all the class was spent on sanchin no one ever batted a eye ,word of mouth had already pre-pared the initial motivations , hardly anyone ever said "Is this all we are gonna do "
My local initial motivations were already out in the local circles enticing the interested .
max ainley
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