...from the mouths of babes...so to speak

[celtic_crippler]

Why is it important to be ethical and choose one's student's wisely?

Well...a student, an orange belt, made an observation today that reminded me why.

During the study of a technique he said, "Man...this stuff is really nasty. I can see why you wouldn't want to teach it to just anybody."

I admit, sometimes I forget just how brutal our art can be. As such, it's important to stress that it is soley for self-defense and shouldn't be misused.

How do ya'll feel about this?

Do you sometimes forget about how lethal kenpo can be?

For the instructors, do you screen students? Honestly.....and if so what methods do you use? Have you ever kicked a student out? Why?

 

[MA-Caver]

It is important to remind ourselves what we learn/teach is literally deadly. That was their initial purpose long ago -- whatever art we study, respectfully.
Thus to me, the best instructors are those who teach the art well, but also teach how/when to use it and even more importantly... why. A good instructor will also teach the student to prepare for the consequences should they have to take all their training to a fatalistic level, for real.

 

[KenpoDave]

Why is it important to be ethical and choose one's student's wisely?

Well...a student, an orange belt, made an observation today that reminded me why.

During the study of a technique he said, "Man...this stuff is really nasty. I can see why you wouldn't want to teach it to just anybody."

I admit, sometimes I forget just how brutal our art can be. As such, it's important to stress that it is soley for self-defense and shouldn't be misused.

How do ya'll feel about this?

Do you sometimes forget about how lethal kenpo can be?

For the instructors, do you screen students? Honestly.....and if so what methods do you use? Have you ever kicked a student out? Why?

There have been a few students that I just refused to accept. For those that I do, the screening process starts on the first lesson. Yes, I have kicked students out. Oddly, I have only had the bully problem with a few of the children I have taught, not with adults.

However, I have fired a few adult students who were wasting my time and the time of other more motivated students.

 

[Scotty]

I have seen a student or two who probably shouldn't be learning the moves/techniques. I try not to train with these types of students in class since I prefer not to get seriously injured. We had a student who had been asked many times to tone it down a bit during class. After a few complaints about him to the instructor from numerous other students he was spoken to. I haven't seen him since.

 

[Thesemindz]

We had an interview process at our school for enrollment, but most people were enrolled unless they seemed really off. Every once in a while we'd get someone crazy or violent and we'd push them off. Occasionally I'd have someone come in and say, "Do you guys fight? 'Cause I'm looking to hurt somebody." Or something along those lines. I'd just smile and give them the numbers for several other schools in the area and apologetically explain that we mostly did air karate. That way they didn't get mad, we just weren't offering the product they wanted.

Every once in a while, we'd have to ask a student to leave the school because of their attitude, or their behavior, but that was pretty rare. In ten years, I think I can only remember four or five students asked to take leave for a few weeks, and only one or two asked not to return.

Ultimately, the owner of the school has to make decisions about who he wants to teach. Unfortunately, the commercialization of martial arts leads to owners and instructors making compromises on this issue, but at the same time, it creates training opportunities for many students who might not otherwise have had access to training.

I've worked with students with mental and physical handicaps, and never had any problem. I've also worked with students with criminal histories. If they have put that behind them, I don't hold it against them. I'm there to teach karate, not force my ethics, morals, or political or religious philosophies on people. Too my mind, it's alright if a teacher does want to do those things, as long as he's honest about his intentions. Then his customers can decide whether or not they want that product.

So basically, while I reserve the right to refuse service, I don't and wouldn't very often. Partly because I just really enjoy karate, and am always on the lookout for someone to train with, and partly because I'm willing to work with most people. Unless you're crazy, or uncontrollably violent, or a complete ***, I'd probably not deny someone service.


-Rob

 

[seninoniwashi]

It's interesting I just came across this post. In another post I responded to this morning I mentioned an incident I had as a junior in high school where I accidently broke a kids arm. The cause was a combination of muscle memory and adrenaline – a kid shoved me and I pinned his arm and broke it. I didn’t even realize it happened until after.

I’ve questioned a lot of the techniques that are taught in the beginning belts. The idea that an unpracticed person is learning to strike someone in the throat or neck is rather concerning. I’ve had some close calls with some over-excited partners with techniques like striking the serpents head. There was one night I thought my trachea had been collapsed when working with an overexcited partner. In my personal opinion a lot of these techniques should be reserved for higher, more controlled belts. However, on the other hand of what I have learned so far I can’t think of very many techniques in the system to switch in that would give a good understanding of the principles of Kenpo.

 

[Rich Parsons]

Why is it important to be ethical and choose one's student's wisely?

Well...a student, an orange belt, made an observation today that reminded me why.

During the study of a technique he said, "Man...this stuff is really nasty. I can see why you wouldn't want to teach it to just anybody."

I admit, sometimes I forget just how brutal our art can be. As such, it's important to stress that it is soley for self-defense and shouldn't be misused.

How do ya'll feel about this?

Do you sometimes forget about how lethal kenpo can be?

For the instructors, do you screen students? Honestly.....and if so what methods do you use? Have you ever kicked a student out? Why?

I was at the U of Mich - Flint using their resources for business and business start up et al. I know the director so I was talking to him in his office. His assistant (* A student at the U and also of Martial Arts *) was interested in what we were talking about as this was something he wanted to do. He wanted to open a business for martial arts. He was outside getting closer trying not to be seen to listen better. I just invited him in.

He was very surprised by my open attitude. I asked him a question, if he planned on teaching kids and the standard format for most store front Martial Arts businesses. He said yes. I told him his model and my model was different. Another puzzled look. So, I explained that I would not be teaching kids how to knife fight. I would teach adults who to stick and knife fight.

Now I know some very good martial artists who also have good businesses with kids in the FMA's, they control the knife techniques with the younger members of their school. I respect this. I work on a more private and semi private methods. So, the models are not the same.


The story has two points, yes martial arts are brutal and can be very dangerous. Also there are ways to approach it for a safety and or business model to allow people to train and learn. Note: This is not an advocation for McDojo's, just an intelligent matrix that explains the technique to the student and also takes into account their capability to process and handle the information in a mature way.

 

[Aniela13]

After 12 years of Kenpo and 2 years away from MA in general, I started up with a Cha San Ryu dojo in my new area...one of my recent requirements was a short list of knife defenses including one for an overhead attack. It took me a little while to get the hang of it, simply because my instinct was to do Raining Lance. My instructor didn't understand why I was having trouble until I showed him what my body was trying to do...and then he looked at me like I had sprouted a second head. We have a very good relationship, so he laughed and told me that I don't have to completely kill the attacker...which started me thinking along the lines of this thread

Being in MA for so long, I have certainly seen how some are likely to abuse their knowledge...but I've also seen many more who are unlikely to ever harm anyone beyond the need to get away.

~Ani

 

[GBlues]

It's interesting I just came across this post. In another post I responded to this morning I mentioned an incident I had as a junior in high school where I accidently broke a kids arm. The cause was a combination of muscle memory and adrenaline – a kid shoved me and I pinned his arm and broke it. I didn’t even realize it happened until after.

I’ve questioned a lot of the techniques that are taught in the beginning belts. The idea that an unpracticed person is learning to strike someone in the throat or neck is rather concerning. I’ve had some close calls with some over-excited partners with techniques like striking the serpents head. There was one night I thought my trachea had been collapsed when working with an overexcited partner. In my personal opinion a lot of these techniques should be reserved for higher, more controlled belts. However, on the other hand of what I have learned so far I can’t think of very many techniques in the system to switch in that would give a good understanding of the principles of Kenpo.

Practice slower. Slower is better anyways. Studies have shown that you gain the same muscle memory and actually learn the skills better when you slow down. Less chance for accidents to happen also. And it helps with your aiming and finding the actual targets and you'll see more opportunities for targets practicing slower. Then when you need to be fast everything is still there. I'm not saying that you shouldn't practice at speed, for timing etc... but you should practice slow in the beginning, almost snail like slow. It helps, try it out and see if you like it.

 

[Danjo]

You can weed out the obvious bad eggs, but beyond that it's going to be tough to tell. It doesn't take a lot of training to be able to seriously injure or kill someone, so if that's what they are looking for, it'll be easy to find out how to do that by watching video clips on the internet. They even teach each other how to do that kind of crap in prison. Those that are only training for bad ends, likely will not have the discipline to learn the higher aspects of the art and will be weeded out well before black belt level.

 

[Kenpo17]

I can say that I have never kicked a student out of class, nor have had a student get severely injured where s/he has to leave class. Part of this is due to our care in teaching each individual student. We won't put a yellow belt in the same class as a brown belt for the reason of experience level, and what forms and techniques we teach each of them. Obviously we aren't going to teach the yellow belts how to sweep since none of their techniques require them to know a sweep or buckle, however blue belts do learn how to buckle and sweep because their techniques require them to sweep, such as Sleeper, and leap of death. We do teach our students safety with the techniques and we are constantly teaching them that those techniques will seriously injure someone.

 

[still learning]

Hello, NOT to teach them 'deadly techniques...is wrong too...

Martial arts...is NOT for fun...when attack on the streets...sometimes we must do what we can to END any confrontations...

Remember the attracker...may be trying to kill you! ....and shaking his hands will not do anything? ....

Define "nasty" .....? ....and what is consider safer? UM...

Aloha, Using a baseball bat..if available? ....nasty or consider safer? ...for you or the attacker?