Breakout Groups Or Not?
I’ve been experimenting with teaching classes with and without breakout groups. I think that breakout groups arranged by rank/skill level can be beneficial in a class setting. However, lately, I’ve begun to reconsider whether breakout groups are all that beneficial from an instructor’s perspective. Teaching…
Blitz Teaching
When I teach class, I often will cover two or three topics/techniques or concepts. In other words, I am blitz teaching. The idea is that the students will have sufficient time to practice each technique or concept. If you are not able to view the…
Resetting
Resetting is a method by which partners engage in a technique sequence to a finite end. At this point, they reset back to the beginning to repeat the sequence. This occurs most often in partner training or one-step sparring. In this post, I discuss this…
When to Teach Counters?
Recently, I was teaching a semi-private lesson with a couple of students. We were working on a new technique that took them a while to learn. They then asked me, “How do you counter this technique?” My answer was that there were several counters like…
Training My Way Out of Grief
I’m pleased to present to you a guest post from Kai Morgan. In this post, she talks about how she used martial arts training to deal with grief. Kai Morgan is a blogger who focuses on how we can become better people through martial arts…
“Can’t” Gets You Fifty Pushups
Guest Blogger Cathy Chapaty is the author of No Pouting in the Dojo: The Imperfect Journey of Teaching Children Character through Martial Arts. A veteran martial artist, Chapaty has been respected as an empowering, positive teacher with a knack for helping children of all ages and abilities…
The Power of Similarities
I have encountered martial artists who like to focus on the differences between martial arts. I think these martial artists are done to distinguish their martial art from the “other” martial art. Often, it serves as the premise of an argument proving the superiority of their martial…
How to Fix The Wet Noodle
The “wet noodle” version of feeding a training partner is a fairly common problem encountered by martial arts instructors. I have seen variations of this problem among children and adults. In this post, I discuss the causes behind poor feeding and offer solutions on how…
4 Reasons for Teaching Beginners
Instructors and advanced students can benefit greatly from teaching beginners. Unfortunately, too many instructors have their junior or senior students working with beginners. Senior students often prefer to work with classmates of the same rank. While there is nothing wrong with working with fellow senior…
Never Too Late!
I am pleased to present a guest post from my good friend, RoseAnne Mussar. She hails from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and trains in Modern Arnis at the 6Tigers Academy in Barrhaven under Renshi Janet Heffernan. She also trains in the American Cane System, often traveling to New…
