Teaching and learning opportunities

         I got the chance to teach some of the white belts more of stick last night, and it didn't go the way I wanted.  1st learning opportunity for me.  At first it was on track, everyone could get through stick 1, so I thought sweet, lets do stick 2.  That's where I saw the stark divide.  There was 1 student that knew that whole part of the form already, 1 who knew some of it, and then the rest that didn't.  Alright, continue on with teaching the first few moves, new to some and review to others, there again, some picked it up right away, and others struggled.

        Where I kept getting sidetracked was with the ones who were struggling and the questions that came up.  I quickly found it difficult to keep everyone on track, while trying to help pout the people who were struggling, whilst keeping the students who knew the form engaged.  Needless to say, I didn't feel great about the experience by the time we were done.  I tried to shake it off, but I care about the quality of information I'm giving, as well as seeing those students succeed.

        It wasn't without its good moments.  Some of the questions asked helped me to reflect on what I do, and the why.  One question in particular... well, at first it was a statement.  "You're doing that wrong."  Which caught me off guard at first.  The part I was showing was stick 1 where we are moving the stick in the different vectors.  The student noticed I was hitting around my lats on certain movements, and they understood it as we should be hitting the arm.  I told them that the important thing was my vectors, and supporting my technique, and not to get too bogged down by the specifics.  This had me reflecting on my own training and how I shouldn't always get bogged down by specifics and trust my body that it is going to do what I need it to do, to support my technique.

        So although I walked away feeling not the greatest about myself after this, I know how to better manage for next time.  Teaching experience is also a learning experience.

Numbers:

Km's- 982

AOK's- 346

PU/SU's- 14,474

DMH- 192

Monk Spade- 192

Sparring- 303 minutes