I've been taking Isshinryu karate for a little over a year and recently my instructor asked me to help with some of the classes. I mostly help with the kids' classes and while navigating dealing with their behavior can be challenging I think there's a built-in respect in my relationships with them because I'm an adult. So even when they don't listen I don't feel like it's because they're trying to be disrespectful.
Now I don't typically help with the adult classes save for being used as the uke a lot, but adults are welcome to take the teen class which I do help with, and many of them do. My issue is dealing with a particular adult white belt and his dismissiveness towards me and quite frankly most of the other helpers, especially the female ones.
This guy is in his twenties and happens to be quite athletic. He supposedly taught himself a bunch of martial arts stuff by reading books and watching videos prior to training. I think he mostly taught himself what would be considered bad habits in our style, like really long stances, showy spinning kicks, and opening his hands while sparing but I suppose that's beside the point. My issues stem from him not listening to a damn thing I tell him. Higher rank belts "check" lower rank belts' kata (and possibly teach more of the kata) at the beginning of class. If you take two classes you still only get checked once, the other day I checked this guy in the teen/adult class and he stayed for the regular adult class (as did I) I caught him asking an instructor to check him, when I said you've already been checked for the day, his response was, "Not by an instructor." Now all the helpers are chosen by the head and instructor and he makes sure your kata is good enough that he thinks it's appropriate for you to teach it to others. So in a way, I feel like this kid is being both disrespectful to the helpers and to the head instructor when he acts like he's too good to be checked by any of them.
My issues with him sort of came to a head last week when I was in charge of watching a group of people sparring. For the kids you really need to watch them because they get too into it and hit too hard or do silly things, but typically the older teens and adults you just have to make sure the groups don't bump into each other, so my instructor had me watch the adults (I assume because he thought there would be fewer issues). We do light to moderate contact with no contact with the head. We also don't allow anyone lower than brown belt to open their hands while sparring to prevent broken fingers. I spent several rounds of sparring constantly yelling at this guy to first close his hands (his response was, "It's habit.") and then more annoyingly to not to make contact with his partners head to which he responded, "I was taping him to let him know I could have made contact." I think the fact that he has an answer for everything is what peeves me off the most. Just say, yes, when I tell you to do something then do it. He also did this weird move (I didn't see the whole things so I can't really describe it) but he wound up basically hip checking another female helper who happened to be taking the teen class. She was kind of pissed and I said I didn't see excatly what happened but don't do it again. Then later we both took the adult class and wound up being paired to spar. I usually go pretty easy on white belts, but since he ticked me off in the last class I decided not to with him. I didn't hit any harder than usual but I but I tagged him every time he made a mistake and didn't let him get anything in, basically to show him that he might be more naturally athletic, younger and faster, but that doesn't necessarily make him better. I don't think he took my point as halfway through the round he stopped turned his back on me and started watching the black belts spar. I was mad and yelled at him that he better watch the person he was sparring. He also then felt the need to stop and complain I made head contact when my hand slightly grazed his head because of the way he blocked my punch. Accidental contact is one thing, I yelled at him earlier because it was obviously intentional contact, but he still felt the need to be petulant about it.
Apparently, after class, he went to the instructor to complain that I (and apparently the other female helper he sparred) were picking on him and that he did nothing wrong. I don't know what the instructor's response was but since he hasn't spoken to me about it I imagine he doesn't think I handled it wrong. Usually, he'll come to me and say something if he thinks I didn't handle something the right way or at least the way he would like it to be handled.
Anyway, that was way longer than I really meant it to be but I guess I just needed to rant. My question is for those that are instructors or teach martial arts, is how would you deal with a student like that? I don't suppose there's really anything I can do to make him respect me, but are there tips for getting him to listen to me? I don't really care at this point how he develops as a martial artist because he obviously doesn't think I can teach him anything, so I probably can't, but my job is also to keep the other students safe and make sure they have a good experience. So advice on how best to do that is welcome.
