Teaching vs. Training - Too Early

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Today, Joelle White at her blog wrote about the relationships of Sensei to Practitioners but that is not the subject of this article but she said something that did inspire this effort, i.e., “Sensei relies heavily on us senior students to teach new beginners.  We’re willing, but that means we sacrifice a good bit of our own training.”

The early years of learning, practice and training are absolutely, “Critical.” To truly set a solid foundation for a life of K&MA one must focus solely on the learning. All to often dojo allow and promote the lower levels, i.e., all kyu and the first three levels of the dan-sha, to assist in teaching with a false reasoning of, “Teaching is a good way to learn aspects of K&MA.” I don’t believe this for one minute and the next paragraph describes my reasoning.

As a Marine with about seven years experience as well as a novice toward the system I was taking while stationed on Okinawa in 1979 I was encouraged to teach classes from time to time. When teaching I spent a good deal of time not training myself. I had one benefit that I had experienced K&MA sporadically over previous years but truthfully, the teaching distracted me from learning. I didn’t realize till many years later that a good teacher, Sensei and mentor must, stressing the MUST, have a solid foundation of study, knowledge and especially, “Understanding,” to properly teach and mentor students/novice practitioners. 

It took me years of exasperation and frustration, almost to the quitting stage, before I began to understand what it takes to be a Sensei. There are, like all things in life, no shortcuts and to achieve a true mentor teacher ability you cannot take those shortcuts or deviate from first learning the root essence of knowledge and understanding of K&MA, especially if for combatives and self-defense - as a Marine the focus was combatives and self-defense. Of course my efforts after leaving active duty were still combatives and self-defense with my winter years focusing solely on self-defense. 

It became my mantra that a Sensei first must learn the full and comprehensive knowledge of the system that would be the foundation for all efforts in K&MA self-defense. It also meant I needed to shift from the original technique-based teaching model of self-defense toward a principled-based multiple-methodology model of K&MA. 

To allow any student practitioner to deviate from learning the entire comprehensive knowledge and understanding of K&MA is to stunt their growth and potential as a true Sensei and mentor. It has resulted, over a span of the fifties through the eighties and even nineties, a loss of a complete system to a more stunted less relevant and applicable system for most applicable goals except in very narrow ways. Lucky for K&MA, there are those whose experiences and professions have redirected a lot of effort toward K&MA as a more diverse yet applicable training, practice and application toward things like, “Sport (legal fighting), combatives (military based mind-set training and use), the self-defense (the socially legal and legal system oriented applications) and the philosophical spirit self-improvement models, i.e., the Way or Doh of K&MA.” 

A student should focus on the shu of shu-ha-ri and only at that level up to the “ha” level, under supervision, before taking on a  teaching role. I also advocate self-analysis and self-discovery to determine if one should even take on a teaching role because that, in and of itself, is another entire system and profession. Not everyone should be a Sensei, many who do turn out to be less than effective all to the detriment of both student and the style or system. 

Spend the formative “shu” hears learning, only assume an associate teaching position with a good sensei when in the “ha” and then as one gains more of the “ha” of shu-ha-ri do they, with their sensei/teachers blessing, move on to a solo role as their own Sensei of their own dojo. It is the best way, it is the true way and it is the ONLY way.  

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