Enough experience to teach? Yea or nay?

[Yokozuna514]

A side job? Really? The vast majority of martial arts instructors in my country have full time jobs so teach martial arts in the evenings and weekends, we have very few full time instructors, hell, we don't even have many full time MMA fighters or coaches, we all have to work as the OP does. Calling it a 'side job' makes it sounds like a seedy bit on the side instead of someone wanting to pass his knowledge on.

I think frankly you need to get over yourself because I can imagine the next thing will be 'real instructors don't charge money for teaching'. I understand that for you it's the romance of imagining yourself as a warrior student of past times, dedicating his life to the one noble art. However I seriously think that even in the 'olden days' instructors needed to live so worked at other jobs to provide a roof over their heads. Putting down others because they don't have your vison is petty.

40 hours. Doesn't seem long admittedly but many believe that you only need one specific kata to be able to defend yourself and it's quite likely that's true as that one kata does contain everything you need. It's great knowing many techniques, many ways of defending yourself but that also comes with it's own dangers. I assume you've the heard the story of the cat and the fox. They are sat under a tree talking about all the techniques they know to avoid getting caught by the hounds, the cat says she only has one technique, the fox is boasting about how many he has. They hear the hounds coming close, the cat runs up the tree, her one technique, the fox is still sat trying to decide which of his many techniques he's going to use when the hounds catch him. end of fox and story.

Knowing the military that 40 hours of training will contain the exact techniques needed for defence, no more, no less and it will be drilled into those taking the course. They may be the cats of the story but they will have good, workable, effective techniques they will be able to use and that is the point of a self defence course so don't sneer at it.

I should probably point out too that many martial artists cannot do self defence to save their lives even after dozens of years training.

and now I'm off to bed, it's that time here. Good night all.

Good grief, Tez3, you do realize that is how the OP described this opportunity. He called it a 'side job' in his very first post but thank you for taking the time to respond to something I was clearly not saying.

 

[Tez3]

Good grief, Tez3, you do realize that is how the OP described this opportunity. He called it a 'side job' in his very first post but thank you for taking the time to respond to something I was clearly not saying.

Good grief, did you realise you came across as so patronising when you said it because you added extra words to make it so? 'Clearly not saying', did I say you had? I am talking about the tone you are coming across with ie 'I am a martial artist, I have trained for years and years serving my art and you think you can teach after just a few years of not my style martial arts pah'.

 

[Yokozuna514]

Good grief, did you realise you came across as so patronising when you said it because you added extra words to make it so? 'Clearly not saying', did I say you had? I am talking about the tone you are coming across with ie 'I am a martial artist, I have trained for years and years serving my art and you think you can teach after just a few years of not my style martial arts pah'.

I don't believe I said that either. If I did, it certainly wasn't in the context you are describing.

 

[Oni_Kadaki]

Now you can get this practical experience doing live drills with quality instructors. Competing and exposing your self to situations that you may realistically fail at.

So those wall drills I showed earlier are honest drills. I take the coach down and man handle him then we both learn and develop rather than the technique having a pre determined outcome.

I very much like the idea of the technique not having a pre-determined outcome, and this flexibility is a concept I've emphasized in my curriculum in the past. At the same time, I do not believe competition is as good a representation of a real confrontation as people give it credit for. If anyone on here is into shooting, I see martial arts competition as pretty analogous to a USPSA-style match... good for getting out out of your comfort zone, but still not representative of actual combat. My (limited) real world experience is consistent with this viewpoint.

Also, it would seem my verbiage has caused a bit of a stir. Please understand, I'm a full-time doctoral student who also serves part time in the Air National Guard. Between those two obligations, my time for any additional work is limited. Despite that, I'm in the dojo an average of five times weekly. If I saw teaching the martial arts as merely a source of income, I would not routinely choose the dojo over going out with my colleagues. I merely said that it would be a "side job" because right now my top priorities are my schooling and military duties. The term was not meant to disparage the martial arts, or the responsibility of an instructor.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Good grief, did you realise you came across as so patronising when you said it because you added extra words to make it so? 'Clearly not saying', did I say you had? I am talking about the tone you are coming across with ie 'I am a martial artist, I have trained for years and years serving my art and you think you can teach after just a few years of not my style martial arts pah'.

I didn't read his posts as that condescending. I don't agree entirely with his point about focusing on a single art, but he seemed to be making it fairly neutrally.

 

[Tez3]

I didn't read his posts as that condescending. I don't agree entirely with his point about focusing on a single art, but he seemed to be making it fairly neutrally.

That would be because men rarely recognise when they are either being condescending or when they are being condescended to.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

My question to you good people is, knowing my time/level of training, and knowing that I DO NOT have a black belt in any single martial art, would you think it reasonable for me to consider teaching as a side-job?

Old Chinese saying said, "When a teacher teaches his students, the teacher and students grow together."

 

[Flying Crane]

My initial comments are focused on the few months of this system, few months of that system, and a few months of some other system.

In my opinion, a good system has a specific foundation and methodology upon which the techniques are built. If the foundation is not properly understood, then the techniques may not function well. If techniques are worked from a foundation from a different system, kind of a mix-and-match, the techniques may or may not work well. It depends.

In my opinion, a few months is not enough time to properly understand how the foundation really works, nor to have developed any real skill in using that foundation to execute the techniques.

So when someone has spent a few months each in several different systems, I suspect they have not yet understood any of the foundations well, and while they may have collected some techniques from each system, they don’t really understand the engine that should lie underneath them and give them real authority and effect.

I guess I don’t really see those few months spent in several methods as being cumulative. Rather, they are incomplete starts.

Now, seven years in aikido, dan grade or lack thereof not withstanding, is significant. This assumes the training has been regular and reasonably intense, and not just dabbling now and again, over the course of seven years.

Instructor grading in a military combative method is a form of instructor “credential”. I don’t know enough about the military methods to comment further than that.

From the standpoint of presenting yourself to prospective students, your instructor credential and your depth in aikido give you what I would characterize as a reasonable credibility.

The other methods in which you have only a few months give you some level of perspective, but I would not play that up too much. That is my opinion.

Overall, I am in no position to judge whether or not you would be a capable teacher. I don’t know you. Maybe you would, maybe you would not. But you have some things in your training history that I feel are credible.

This is my opinion.


Edit to add: the two years each in Hakkoryu and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and the two years between two different Karate methods may be enough to have some level of legitimate significance. These things add to your credibility.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

That would be because men rarely recognise when they are either being condescending or when they are being condescended to.

That's a pretty condescending remark, Tez.

 

[Flying Crane]

That's a pretty condescending remark, Tez.

What does condescending mean?

 

[Flying Crane]

double post

 

[Gerry Seymour]

What does condescending mean?

Do you need me to mansplain it to you? (I couldn't resist that.)

 

[Flying Crane]

Do you need me to mansplain it to you? (I couldn't resist that.)

Oh I’m clueless. I just blunder through life like the Hulk on a roid rage.

 

[drop bear]

What does condescending mean?

An Italian guy walking down a set of stairs.

 

[drop bear]

My initial comments are focused on the few months of this system, few months of that system, and a few months of some other system.

In my opinion, a good system has a specific foundation and methodology upon which the techniques are built. If the foundation is not properly understood, then the techniques may not function well. If techniques are worked from a foundation from a different system, kind of a mix-and-match, the techniques may or may not work well. It depends.

In my opinion, a few months is not enough time to properly understand how the foundation really works, nor to have developed any real skill in using that foundation to execute the techniques.

So when someone has spent a few months each in several different systems, I suspect they have not yet understood any of the foundations well, and while they may have collected some techniques from each system, they don’t really understand the engine that should lie underneath them and give them real authority and effect.

I guess I don’t really see those few months spent in several methods as being cumulative. Rather, they are incomplete starts.

Now, seven years in aikido, dan grade or lack thereof not withstanding, is significant. This assumes the training has been regular and reasonably intense, and not just dabbling now and again, over the course of seven years.

Instructor grading in a military combative method is a form of instructor “credential”. I don’t know enough about the military methods to comment further than that.

From the standpoint of presenting yourself to prospective students, your instructor credential and your depth in aikido give you what I would characterize as a reasonable credibility.

The other methods in which you have only a few months give you some level of perspective, but I would not play that up too much. That is my opinion.

Overall, I am in no position to judge whether or not you would be a capable teacher. I don’t know you. Maybe you would, maybe you would not. But you have some things in your training history that I feel are credible.

This is my opinion.


Edit to add: the two years each in Hakkoryu and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and the two years between two different Karate methods may be enough to have some level of legitimate significance. These things add to your credibility.

Again it is a set of objectives. The system creates the method in which you reach those objectives.

Mix and match works fine so long as you keep creating paths to progress.

Quite often the issue is the reverse. You are given an objective but try to find the solution as per the system.

Looking at you wing chun ground work.

 

[Buka]

There are a lot of Martial Artists with tons of experience and who really know their dojo/style’s curriculum inside and out. But some of them can’t teach at all.

 

[Tez3]

That's a pretty condescending remark, Tez.

No it's the remark of a woman who has had 65 years of experience in condescending remarks from men. It's the howl of a woman sick to death of having things explained, being told women can't do this or that. It's the cry of a woman who had spent over 20 years getting men to accept that women can fight MMA, over 50 years of pushing to get more women into martial arts without being patronised by men, 50 years of trying to explain to men that women know what sort of self defence they need, and quite a while now wondering where all the fine martial arts women who used to post on here have gone. I actually know the answer, they told me when I tried to get them back. This is now just a boy's club.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Again it is a set of objectives. The system creates the method in which you reach those objectives.

Mix and match works fine so long as you keep creating paths to progress.

Quite often the issue is the reverse. You are given an objective but try to find the solution as per the system.

Looking at you wing chun ground work.

I tend to agree with this. I might not pick up the system-specific mechanics when I don't study a system long enough (which probably varies by system, instructor, and student), but if I find a solution to a problem - and can integrate it into my personal approach - then it works in my system.

 

[drop bear]

No it's the remark of a woman who has had 65 years of experience in condescending remarks from men. It's the howl of a woman sick to death of having things explained, being told women can't do this or that. It's the cry of a woman who had spent over 20 years getting men to accept that women can fight MMA, over 50 years of pushing to get more women into martial arts without being patronised by men, 50 years of trying to explain to men that women know what sort of self defence they need, and quite a while now wondering where all the fine martial arts women who used to post on here have gone. I actually know the answer, they told me when I tried to get them back. This is now just a boy's club.

As a side note. We have women fighters and there has been almost no societal pressure on them.

Log In or Sign Up to View

Lara and Annette cracking each other in the skull.

 

[Tez3]

As a side note. We have women fighters and there has been almost no societal pressure on them.

Log In or Sign Up to View

Lara and Annette cracking each other in the skull.

Now there's not, what about 20-50 years ago?