As a Taekwon-Do teacher, I must admit my instructional methods are somewhat unconventional. Kind of like my blog posts (when I eventually remember to do them)...
But over the last few weeks, I feel like I hit on something with my students that should help them not only in Taekwon-Do but in their lives... so I felt it was only appropriate to share with all of you who take the time to read my silliness!
After trying everything I could think of to get my students to understand that the reason we need to have realism in our patterns is to promote both a greater understanding of our art AND to improve power and increase stamina.... etc etc etc..... I realized I wasn't getting through. So I tried to create a visual image that would work for my students...
I to this moment am not entirely sure WHAT part of my brain drove this conversation, if any part of my brain can be held responsible. But after the sixteen thousandth time of trying to get my class to actually put their hands in front of their groin (aka naughty bits, wherewithalls, you name it) when performing a specific technique, and having explained the technical requirements until it was as painful to me to describe as it was for them to hear.... I had had it. The next words that came out of my mouth? "Imagine, if you will... a ferret" (sure some of you may ask WHY a ferret... I have no clue.) "An angry groin-attacking feral ferret." "An angry groin attacking feral ferret with HUGE front teeth... coming right at your (insert favorite nickname for groin here)..."
Sure, the students looked at me like I was crazy. Are they wrong? Probably not. But the next time they did that move in a pattern, guess what.... each one of them started laughing at the mental image.... AND they did it better!!!! Of course one of my students then had to bring in a squeaky ferret toy that I occassionally throw at them...
Then the following week, the focus was on speed. Now we have students that range in age from 4 to over 50, and some in better shape than others, and many with physical limitations due to age, neglect, bad genes, or overuse... so we may not LOOK like the ideal versions of martial artists... BUT we WORK HARD, we have fun, and we love what we do. This does not, however, mean that we don't have stuff to fix. Like increasing speed. That's a big one. My solution for that? Simple.
I realized the students didn't have that same sort of "ferret-induced" urgency through the rest of their patterns and moves... so we talked about the fact that there are moments in life when you realize something bad is about to happen and you have to throw yourself into it to avoid BIGGER problems. Like say you see your favorite piece of electronic equipment falling out of your pocket and into a toilet... are you going to stand there thinking "wow that is going to really be bad if I don't do something?" Heck no!!!! You are going to yell "OH CRUD" and rush to try to catch it BEFORE the bad thing happens. So... in a fit of desperation, I told my students we were going to do OH CRUD patterns and that they had to yell OH CRUD every time they did a move.
Did it help? You bet. Did we laugh and have fun? You BET!!! Does it make it fun for the teacher to keep on teaching and the students to keep on learning, YOU BET!!!!
So my methods may be unconventional.... but I like to think they work. And if they don't there's still the amusement factor from watching 10 fully grown adults yelling "Oh Crud" at the top of their lungs while performing Taekwon-Do....
