As a martial arts instructor, my top goal is to help students improve their martial arts.
…Duh, you might be thinking.
But, what most students want to do when they’re eager, self-conscious, and ego-driven (which is how most students start) is the opposite of what’s going to make them great at martial arts.
When you’re eager to learn, you want to go faster—but, your body isn’t properly coordinated yet to go faster. New students must do the opposite and go slow. Because as the saying goes: slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
When you’re self-conscious, you’re not training for you—you’re training with others in mind. You’re either trying to better fit in or better stand out. Because of this, your martial arts is secondary to social cues. It isn’t until you’ve properly integrated with the group and can focus more exclusively on yourself that you’ll begin to truly improve.
When you’re ego-driven, you do everything you can to look and do things that’ll get praised, admired, shouted-out. Which often translates to kicking higher, but with worse technique. Or striking faster, with more poorly coordinated strikes. Or training longer, when fatigue is increasingly affecting the correctness of the moves.
Which is why, as a martial arts instructor my strategy to accomplish the goal is usually threefold: (1) To get students to go slower, (2) To make students feel welcomed and comfortable in the group as quickly as possible, and (3) To disproportionately praise, admire, and shout-out character-based behaviors versus talent-based ones.
It’s important to remember, as leaders/teachers, that content isn’t the end-all, be-all. Delivery—how that content is packaged and sent—matters just as much.