The other day I talked about "The Teaching Window" on my blog. I think it will give people food for thought so here is the link:
The Instinctive Edge
The Instinctive Edge
The Teaching Window!!!!
- Thread starter Brian R. VanCise
- Start date
Great post -- and something I've thought about, too.
There are a lot of people teaching with little real understanding. They parrot the motions, the do what they did... but they don't understand why they had to do it as a student. Often, I think this leads to a loss of fundamentals and an over-focus on fancy and advanced things, on what's "cool" rather than the basics that make everything else work.
There are a lot of people teaching with little real understanding. They parrot the motions, the do what they did... but they don't understand why they had to do it as a student. Often, I think this leads to a loss of fundamentals and an over-focus on fancy and advanced things, on what's "cool" rather than the basics that make everything else work.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #3
Glad you liked it jks9199.
I liked it too. 
When I look at my teaching critically, I don't pay anywhere near as much to basics that I should. I recently conducted a grading and reckoned I made enough notes to talk to the guys about their progress. Then I watched the video we took of the grading. The basic errors in stance and technique made me cringe, and it was my fault for not drilling it. So, last night I told them "no more gradings until we have nailed the basics."
In the context of the blog, I'm probably outside the window. I have no problem working with the more advanced guys but with lower ranks I probably expect too much too soon. It certainly gives food for thought. :asian:
When I look at my teaching critically, I don't pay anywhere near as much to basics that I should. I recently conducted a grading and reckoned I made enough notes to talk to the guys about their progress. Then I watched the video we took of the grading. The basic errors in stance and technique made me cringe, and it was my fault for not drilling it. So, last night I told them "no more gradings until we have nailed the basics."
In the context of the blog, I'm probably outside the window. I have no problem working with the more advanced guys but with lower ranks I probably expect too much too soon. It certainly gives food for thought. :asian:
It's definitely a challenge... You have to remember to teach a newbie like a newbie. My teaching partner and I made the mistake for a couple of years of trying to teach new students at the level of experienced students. So... they'd come in, and spend hours on their first night, and walk out with maybe one punch. We've moved back to teaching several punches and blocks on the first night, then throw them in the deep end with everyone else, and pull them out to expand and improve.
Wow, you need some line breaks in that!
Your post seems to make teaching out to mainly be demonstrate and copy style teaching, and it makes some sense that this would have a limited time of application, particularly if you can't scale it appropriately to the audience. In my opinion, good teaching is a lot of work in developing systems for different learning styles, including good communication tools, progressions, reinforcing strategies and cues.
Thus I think that a really great teacher is always getting better and should never reach the end of a "Teaching Window" unless they can't walk and talk anymore. Sure a diminishment in actual athletic ability may hamper one's ease of demonstrating to a predominantly visual learner, but there are plenty of ways around that difficulty.
Those that can not teach because they can not do, are poor teachers, and those that can teach despite never having done are the kinds of people who make Olympic coaches.
Your post seems to make teaching out to mainly be demonstrate and copy style teaching, and it makes some sense that this would have a limited time of application, particularly if you can't scale it appropriately to the audience. In my opinion, good teaching is a lot of work in developing systems for different learning styles, including good communication tools, progressions, reinforcing strategies and cues.
Thus I think that a really great teacher is always getting better and should never reach the end of a "Teaching Window" unless they can't walk and talk anymore. Sure a diminishment in actual athletic ability may hamper one's ease of demonstrating to a predominantly visual learner, but there are plenty of ways around that difficulty.
Those that can not teach because they can not do, are poor teachers, and those that can teach despite never having done are the kinds of people who make Olympic coaches.
Very thought provoking. What it does for me, is, your blog brings back many conversations I've had over the years that seemed to contradict each other. But maybe, these conversations from very knowledgeable people were spoken from, as you have so amply put, from windows either opening or on the flip side closing. Either way, you have helped me to clean off my "window" for a better view into my experiences.
I don't disagree that a great teacher can always teach, especially with good assistants who can actually demonstrate when the teacher no longer can. But, at the same time, there are levels perhaps of teaching... and sometimes, it's very hard to go backwards. I've seen this with several very senior, very well respected instructors. Brian mentioned Hatsumi in his blog; it's clear, when you watch videos of his current class, that he is really teaching only for one or two people in the room. The rest will get something out of it -- but not nearly as much as the one or two ready for that high level instruction. Most are going miss a lot of the subleties because they are so refined. In a similar way, Dr. Gyi isn't teaching fundamentals anymore; he's trained enough others to teach them so that he can focus on teaching and getting other material out, like the Animal Systems, Monk and Wizard Systems. I'd venture a guess that you could say the same about many grandmasters of different systems; I just haven't looked at enough of them to say for sure.
Happy-Papi
Green Belt
This is very good, thank you very much Brian!
I was never a teacher and have always considered myself as a pawn and I often have a feeling that my teaching window is obsolete and long overdue but since I still get some MA practitioners asking me to teach from time to time, I often teach them the refined version of the study. Maybe because I have grown old, fat and slow plus the real dangers that I was in during my study years in the Philippines cannot be compared to the peaceful times nowadays and especially that I live in Japan which is a very peaceful country. One thing that I notice is that my followers are sometimes imitating the old, slow fat man movements that I do even when they are 20 plus younger than me.
Based on my experience, I proved that I am not a good civilian trainer. I have trained some MA practitioners in Japan but when I visited my country last year and shared with my brothers who are military officers (one is a scary thinker and one is spec ops) and some of my old buddies in the forces, I was again back in the proper teaching window but when I came home to Japan again I came back to my old diluted ways. Probably the location, purpose and the amount of danger plays a big role on how I teach.
This is very true especially with my son. Our original study was focused more on sneaky offensive fighting, backstabbing, drag-drop and forget and teaching this to my son when he was in his early teens is a big NO. I had to make many changes and tailor it based on his age, his nationality, and the country's present danger (which is none). I had a hard time teaching him how to do hits that will not put himself and his opponents in real danger. The original study was that our hits must be lethal as much as possible, giving most concentration to the eyes, nose, neck, and other vital points. Twisting/grappling was intended to break bones, throwing was intended for dropping our enemies head first on concrete or slamming his head on the corner of a table. Choking was not intended for giving a sleeper but was intended to collapse the windpipe or rip apart the jugular. I had to dilute most of the techniques like a simple punch on face than a rake or thumb jab on an eyes. He can grapple and throw but mostly for control and not to break bones. He can choke but for sleeper only. As he grew older, I slowly taught him the real stuffs but since he got the more diluted training, his attacks are a lot milder compared to the original study.
Another thing that I have noticed is that since I started teaching kids that I enjoy being or acting as their practice dummy. During my training days I was very aggressive and losing is not an option (if I lose I might pound him with a 1911) but now I allow kids to slam me on concrete, twist me, choke me and even hit my face and this is why I get injured a lot, lol Even with sticks and knives, I unconsciously find myself feeding in and acting like a dummy especially for kids and girls (kids are so cute!). I have grown softer and loving But with my brothers and my original mates, we still hit each other the old fashion way and it was nice but again since I'm getting old, slow and fat, I could not do the movements like when I was in my teens. Yes the movements may still be effective and direct but now I have evolved to a more peace loving, turtle-like fighting softie machine, and whenever I teach I have the taught in my brain saying, "Am I doing it right or am I just teaching BS". I truly believe that my teaching window days are gone and the best that my followers will get from me is more BS than the original study Maybe this is why I don't get paid to teach. Maybe it is time for me to really stop teaching and just play Call of Duty or Left 4 Dead, HAHAHA!
I was never a teacher and have always considered myself as a pawn and I often have a feeling that my teaching window is obsolete and long overdue but since I still get some MA practitioners asking me to teach from time to time, I often teach them the refined version of the study. Maybe because I have grown old, fat and slow plus the real dangers that I was in during my study years in the Philippines cannot be compared to the peaceful times nowadays and especially that I live in Japan which is a very peaceful country. One thing that I notice is that my followers are sometimes imitating the old, slow fat man movements that I do even when they are 20 plus younger than me.
Based on my experience, I proved that I am not a good civilian trainer. I have trained some MA practitioners in Japan but when I visited my country last year and shared with my brothers who are military officers (one is a scary thinker and one is spec ops) and some of my old buddies in the forces, I was again back in the proper teaching window but when I came home to Japan again I came back to my old diluted ways. Probably the location, purpose and the amount of danger plays a big role on how I teach.
This is very true especially with my son. Our original study was focused more on sneaky offensive fighting, backstabbing, drag-drop and forget and teaching this to my son when he was in his early teens is a big NO. I had to make many changes and tailor it based on his age, his nationality, and the country's present danger (which is none). I had a hard time teaching him how to do hits that will not put himself and his opponents in real danger. The original study was that our hits must be lethal as much as possible, giving most concentration to the eyes, nose, neck, and other vital points. Twisting/grappling was intended to break bones, throwing was intended for dropping our enemies head first on concrete or slamming his head on the corner of a table. Choking was not intended for giving a sleeper but was intended to collapse the windpipe or rip apart the jugular. I had to dilute most of the techniques like a simple punch on face than a rake or thumb jab on an eyes. He can grapple and throw but mostly for control and not to break bones. He can choke but for sleeper only. As he grew older, I slowly taught him the real stuffs but since he got the more diluted training, his attacks are a lot milder compared to the original study.
Another thing that I have noticed is that since I started teaching kids that I enjoy being or acting as their practice dummy. During my training days I was very aggressive and losing is not an option (if I lose I might pound him with a 1911) but now I allow kids to slam me on concrete, twist me, choke me and even hit my face and this is why I get injured a lot, lol
Even with sticks and knives, I unconsciously find myself feeding in and acting like a dummy especially for kids and girls (kids are so cute!). I have grown softer and loving But with my brothers and my original mates, we still hit each other the old fashion way and it was nice but again since I'm getting old, slow and fat, I could not do the movements like when I was in my teens. Yes the movements may still be effective and direct but now I have evolved to a more peace loving, turtle-like fighting softie machine, and whenever I teach I have the taught in my brain saying, "Am I doing it right or am I just teaching BS". I truly believe that my teaching window days are gone and the best that my followers will get from me is more BS than the original study Maybe this is why I don't get paid to teach. Maybe it is time for me to really stop teaching and just play Call of Duty or Left 4 Dead, HAHAHA!
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
I have been thinking about Brian’s blog post as it applies to my Taijiquan shifu and although I do agree with what Brian is saying (and for the record he did not at any point in that post say this applies to everybody) and I 100% agree that there are some advanced practitioners and high ranking martial artists that should never ever teach, they just are not good teachers and would be better off working on their own training than trying to train others. Example; Me, my wife has told me many times I would never make any money teaching martial arts here because I am too serious.
Now as to the athleticism and the teaching window; In some cases I do believe that is absolutely the issue but that does not mean that they can no longer teach. There was a rather skilled Wing Chun sifu from the Ip Man line in, I believe, Guangzhou who was pretty much in a wheel chair most of the time. But he could still teach, he could not get up and show students by example but he had senior students there that could show other exactly what he was talking about. He had the well trained and experienced eye to see the problems as well as the ability to explain what he was talking about and the dedicated longtime student who wanted to help. Could he have taught the class without help from his senior students…well…no…but he had help and was still quite knowledgeable and still had a lot to contribute. I am sorry, I cannot remember his name at the moment and the video he is on is at home.
Now in the case of my Taijiquan shifu I feel it is similar to an IT colleague I once had in an office I use to work in. He was a programmer and he could write amazing programs. However at meetings he would explain none of it in a language anyone could understand, which is where I came in, I was basically his translator. I use to think it was arrogance that made him do this until one meeting where he gave this long explanation and then everyone looked at me, including him, for the translation and my response was “sorry folks but I honestly have no idea how to explain this since I have no idea what the is talking about either”. He had that deer in the headlight looks on his face and he turned to the others in the meeting and said “I…. I…have no idea how to say this any other way”. He was at a very high level and had forgotten all the basics that got him there.
As for my taiji shifu, I do not think it is athleticism, although he has said he is not as strong as he used to be and he based this on the fact that he could no longer lie on his back and hold his legs of the floor at a 30 degree angle for 10 minutes. Now, in his 70s, he could only hold his legs there for 5 minutes. In his case I feel it is more like my old colleague. My shifu no longer teaches beginners like he used to and there are other reasons for this that I will not get into here, but one of those I feel is his level of skill and understanding. He has been doing Taijiquan and only Taijiquan for 60 years or more and his movements can produce incredible power (knock me on my butt power and I got about 100 pound on him) but his movements are at times unperceivable. And I am not sure he can change that to obvious movements to explain what he is doing to a beginner who is trying to learn Taijiquan.
And with all that said I still do not feel it contradicts anything Brian said in his post if you fully read and understand what he is saying and not take it personally or not respond based on a first impressions or a knee jerk reaction based on strong emotion
Now as to the athleticism and the teaching window; In some cases I do believe that is absolutely the issue but that does not mean that they can no longer teach. There was a rather skilled Wing Chun sifu from the Ip Man line in, I believe, Guangzhou who was pretty much in a wheel chair most of the time. But he could still teach, he could not get up and show students by example but he had senior students there that could show other exactly what he was talking about. He had the well trained and experienced eye to see the problems as well as the ability to explain what he was talking about and the dedicated longtime student who wanted to help. Could he have taught the class without help from his senior students…well…no…but he had help and was still quite knowledgeable and still had a lot to contribute. I am sorry, I cannot remember his name at the moment and the video he is on is at home.
Now in the case of my Taijiquan shifu I feel it is similar to an IT colleague I once had in an office I use to work in. He was a programmer and he could write amazing programs. However at meetings he would explain none of it in a language anyone could understand, which is where I came in, I was basically his translator. I use to think it was arrogance that made him do this until one meeting where he gave this long explanation and then everyone looked at me, including him, for the translation and my response was “sorry folks but I honestly have no idea how to explain this since I have no idea what the is talking about either”. He had that deer in the headlight looks on his face and he turned to the others in the meeting and said “I…. I…have no idea how to say this any other way”. He was at a very high level and had forgotten all the basics that got him there.
As for my taiji shifu, I do not think it is athleticism, although he has said he is not as strong as he used to be and he based this on the fact that he could no longer lie on his back and hold his legs of the floor at a 30 degree angle for 10 minutes. Now, in his 70s, he could only hold his legs there for 5 minutes. In his case I feel it is more like my old colleague. My shifu no longer teaches beginners like he used to and there are other reasons for this that I will not get into here, but one of those I feel is his level of skill and understanding. He has been doing Taijiquan and only Taijiquan for 60 years or more and his movements can produce incredible power (knock me on my butt power and I got about 100 pound on him) but his movements are at times unperceivable. And I am not sure he can change that to obvious movements to explain what he is doing to a beginner who is trying to learn Taijiquan.
And with all that said I still do not feel it contradicts anything Brian said in his post if you fully read and understand what he is saying and not take it personally or not respond based on a first impressions or a knee jerk reaction based on strong emotion
The thing to remember is that teaching is an art in its own right. If you want to be a really good martial arts teacher, you need to study and practice your teaching skills just as conscientiously as you practice your martial art.
Part of the art of teaching is understanding how to demonstrate and explain movements to students at different levels. If you are a master of that aspect, then there really isn't a problem with your martial art technique being "too refined" for a beginning student to see what you are doing. You'll know when to make your movements bigger so that the student can follow the action. Admittedly, there will probably come a day when you are unable to demonstrate some of the more athletic movements (this will vary according to how much athleticism is inherent in your art). That doesn't mean you can't still be a good coach and guide students who are practicing those movements.
I've helped teach people off-and-on for years, just because I love sharing knowledge. This past year is the first time I've officially had my own regular class that I'm responsible for - I've been running the beginners BJJ class at my gym. For the first time, I'm really studying the art of how to be a coach/instructor. Instead of just teaching whatever I feel like on a given day, I'm preparing lesson plans, thinking about what to teach, how to explain it, how to demonstrate it, what drills and exercises to select, how lessons should fit together from one day to the next, how to balance the needs of different students, how to balance time between demonstration, explanation, drilling, and free grappling, how much detail I should offer in corrections, how best to encourage students, and much more. On the plus side, I've had a number of students tell me that they get more out of my classes than they do from some of my seniors who are running the more advanced classes. On the other hand, I'm becoming increasingly aware of how much more I still have to learn about the art of teaching. I'm starting to suspect that at age 70 I will still be learning more about how to practice jiu-jitsu and more about how to teach it effectively as well.
Part of the art of teaching is understanding how to demonstrate and explain movements to students at different levels. If you are a master of that aspect, then there really isn't a problem with your martial art technique being "too refined" for a beginning student to see what you are doing. You'll know when to make your movements bigger so that the student can follow the action. Admittedly, there will probably come a day when you are unable to demonstrate some of the more athletic movements (this will vary according to how much athleticism is inherent in your art). That doesn't mean you can't still be a good coach and guide students who are practicing those movements.
I've helped teach people off-and-on for years, just because I love sharing knowledge. This past year is the first time I've officially had my own regular class that I'm responsible for - I've been running the beginners BJJ class at my gym. For the first time, I'm really studying the art of how to be a coach/instructor. Instead of just teaching whatever I feel like on a given day, I'm preparing lesson plans, thinking about what to teach, how to explain it, how to demonstrate it, what drills and exercises to select, how lessons should fit together from one day to the next, how to balance the needs of different students, how to balance time between demonstration, explanation, drilling, and free grappling, how much detail I should offer in corrections, how best to encourage students, and much more. On the plus side, I've had a number of students tell me that they get more out of my classes than they do from some of my seniors who are running the more advanced classes. On the other hand, I'm becoming increasingly aware of how much more I still have to learn about the art of teaching. I'm starting to suspect that at age 70 I will still be learning more about how to practice jiu-jitsu and more about how to teach it effectively as well.
This to me, sounds like a poor teacher if they lack that ability...
Then you either need the resources to manage different skill levels, or you have class segregation.
REY MISTERIO
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I know some new posters have not seen this blog post so I thought I would revive it to continue the discussion!
I just attended a seminar last weekend with Neil Adams. He's 55 years old now, so if he has a teaching window it must be pretty wide. My judo skills are only rudimentary, but I took a ton of helpful stuff away from the seminar. The judo black belts there seemed equally happy with what they learned.
Two thoughts about that (relating to your article) ...
1) Adams wasn't just demonstrating techniques and saying "do what I do." He was explaining principles and giving exercises to help us figure things out and learn for ourselves.
2) When he was demonstrating techniques, it was apparent that Adams still has a level of athleticism that many younger practitioners would envy. I'm sure he doesn't have the power, flexibility, and conditioning that he did in his Olympic days, but he's still probably more athletic than most hobbyist judo black belts.
Two thoughts about that (relating to your article) ...
1) Adams wasn't just demonstrating techniques and saying "do what I do." He was explaining principles and giving exercises to help us figure things out and learn for ourselves.
2) When he was demonstrating techniques, it was apparent that Adams still has a level of athleticism that many younger practitioners would envy. I'm sure he doesn't have the power, flexibility, and conditioning that he did in his Olympic days, but he's still probably more athletic than most hobbyist judo black belts.
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