One Trick to Be a Better Teacher of Martial Arts

If you’re a martial arts teacher, I bet this has happened to you. You’re watching a student spar—let’s call him Rodney. Rodney’s not doing well. So, you coach him—

“Rodney! Relax, keep your hands up, bend your knees, move, combinations, keep your chin down, pressure!”

Then what happens? Nothing.  Rodney fixes nothing. It’s like he didn’t even hear you.

Now what? You get frustrated. You think about giving up on Rodney. You think about giving up on teaching. But you don’t. Instead, you keep shouting the same corrections over and over, class after class, until you lose your voice.

Then you go home, sit in the dark, and grumble to your old friend, Jack Daniels. Jack’s always a good listener.

To be fair, I’ve felt the same frustration as a student. Let me tell you about the first time I went zip lining.

My guide was a perky young woman named Morgan. Morgan assured me I’d be safe if I just followed her directions. She explained…

Sit back in your harness. Feet out. Feet crossed.

Curl up in a ball for more speed.

Hands on the T-bar, but don’t pull up.

If you twist, apply pressure on the bar to straighten out.

Brake by dragging your hand behind the trolley on the bottom wire.

Don’t grab the wire–use a flat hand.

If you stop early, turn around. Put one hand in front of the trolley and one behind. Pull yourself in.

When you get to the other side, step on the stool.

Morgan finished with, “Any questions?”

I laughed to myself, “Uh, yeah…lots!”

But it didn’t matter. It was my turn.

3…2…1… GO!

Did I survive? Clearly. Did I screw up? Absolutely!

I pulled on the bar, got turned around, grabbed the wrong line, and crashed into the pad. Morgan lied, “Good job, Ando,” but I felt like an idiot.

So, what’s the lesson here?

Well, as a teacher, and as someone who has hired and trained teachers, I can tell you that the problem isn’t Rodney or me… the problem is teaching too much!

New teachers fall into this trap constantly. But I’ve seen old teachers do the same thing. So, why is there so much over-teaching?

Maybe it’s enthusiasm. You want to give your students everything you’ve got. I get that.

Or maybe it’s ego. You want everyone to know how much you know. I get that, too. But either way—your students are suffering.

Just because you give, give, give, doesn’t mean your students can take, take, take. It’s not how we’re wired.

Consider this—if you throw a student one ball, he’ll probably catch it. If you throw two balls, he might catch one, but drop the other. If you throw three balls, he’ll probably catch nothing and get hit in the head.

So, stop throwing so many balls! The trick to effective teaching is to throw one ball at a time!

But don’t just take my word for it. Check out this video from one of my teachers, Sifu Matt Ember. One Tip to Learn Martial Arts Faster.

How to Be a Better Teacher in Martial Arts

As teachers, we must recognize the limitations of the human brain. Studies show the brain works best when it focuses on one task at a time. 

Yes, you may be able to switch back and forth between tasks quickly, that’s multi-tasking, but to do something well, you need to single it out.

So, if you give a student a list of five things to fix, you should know that remembering all five will be difficult… improving all five will be impossible!

That’s why it takes time to develop skill. You can’t work on everything at the same time.

It might help to remember that ultimately, teaching is not about YOU—it’s about your students. A good teacher understands that their job is to lead students step-by-step towards a goal.

The key is to lay out the right step at the right time to help each student go where they need to go.

Don’t get me wrong—as a teacher, you will always see a long list of issues that need correcting. But let’s be honest… you don’t need to be a great teacher to see what a student is doing wrong!

A great teacher is someone who can see what a student—even the worst student—is doing RIGHT, then fans that spark to build a fire from there.

That’s good advice for your own training, too. To be a better teacher to yourself, don’t drown yourself in an endless list of corrections and goals. Instead, pick one issue, one goal, at a time.

Focus on it. Fix it. Then repeat that process forever… until the day you die.

That’s the tip! To be a better teacher of martial arts, challenge yourself to teach a little less and watch your students learn a little more. And if you really can’t shut up and love the sound of your own voice, make videos… that’s what I do!

Until next time, keep teaching, my friend, and keep fighting for a happy life.

To read more on becoming a master teacher, click here.