05 Apr The Martial Arts Instructor Dilemma
So let’s look at three different examples to begin. A middle school age coach, a college professor, and an MMA coach. The first two are met by many different challenges. They have a limited amount of time with their students, however they have some advantages.
Starting the season of a sport, or starting a semester in school you take a group with similar backgrounds and abilities and start to build them. You have a set end point, and you have a goal of the total knowledge they will have by the end.
On youth sports teams, the first couple weeks are typically spent installing the system. After that games begin and adjustments are being made in between games to alter the system or improve implementation. By bringing everyone together, players can be taught in a specific sequence.
In the college atmosphere, the professor has typically gone through the syllabus multiple times. Everything has been consistently sequenced and presented in a way to ensure pacing and retention benefits the highest number of students. Small adjustments can be made, but the system is in place to ensure that students learn the required knowledge.
Now we have the MMA coach. Every practice you show up to a different group. Sometimes you have odd numbers and some classes even. Classes can be surprisingly big or small. Students come and go on there own schedule and have very disparate skill levels.
So now there are questions to answer. How do you develop a system? How do you ensure that students learn the appropriate material. There are so many ground techniques to cover, so what if your student skipped the night you covered rear naked choke defense. What if your student was sick the week that the class covered dealing with the jab of a taller opponent?
To me the answer is simple and really involves three elements:
• Teach themes not specifics. By covering material thematically, students can apply principles across disciplines. The details only reinforce the overall application of the technique and students can accelerate their learning process. So the lesson may be on striking inside the guard and contain material that is beneficial to all; but the themes of posture, hip or wrist control, and creating openings apply across positions for ground and pound.
• Create an environment and culture that pursues knowledge and excellence. The level of resources available to students continues to increase. My strength coach, Jon Beyle, constantly reinforced to us that the 160 hours we spent away from him mattered much more than the 8 we worked with him each week in terms of our athletic performance. The same is true for studying and learning a skill. If you create a process based environment that rewards those who pursue knowledge on their own, many of the gaps will get filled in naturally without your direct instruction.
• Know your students and take an interest in their development. More than simply dictating technique, a teacher should observe and support the learning process of each student. This process will change over the years and require different inputs, but you must always pay enough attention to the subtle shifts, in order to provide the best value to each individual.
These challenges consume me. How to sequence, what to teach, where to focus, but in the end I continually come back to themes, environment, and focusing on each student as an individual. professor, and an MMA coach.