Martial Arts Instructors Course Outline

How Students Learn-The Science of Teaching

One of the reasons the Martial Arts Teacher’s Certification program is so popular is that we present both the academic support and the real-world translation into working with students on a daily basis. We’ll give you the science, but we’ll only test you on the practical application in more layman terms.

Learn how to structure your curriculum to spur student interest and avoid overwhelming beginners or boring advanced students.

Muscular strength and muscular endurance are important to withstand the resistance offered by opponents. Participants must also develop flexibility so that they can bend and twist with ease when executing martial arts movements.

Introduction

Teaching according to developmental levels can make the martial art learning experience more pleasurable and effective for all students. There are benefits for instructors as well. Specifically, the instructor should can create lesson plans designed to meet the needs of students. The better educated martial arts instructors are about the developmental abilities of students, the better the lesson plans can be designed to meet the needs of those students.

The study of martial arts involves thinking, physical conditioning, emotional involvement, and an examination of moral character. For these reasons, this chapter will focus on these aspects of development, and how the martial arts instructor can use the information to design lesson plans which truly meet the needs of students.

This chapter will review the cognitive (“thinking”), communication, physical, emotional and moral developmental patterns of age groups from preschooler to adults. We will explore how these factors influence martial arts training. Furthermore, we will consider special issues such as gender differences, learning styles, and multiple-age ranges training together.

The information presented in this chapter is to serve as a guideline for understanding life-span development. Varying paces of maturation, physical make-up, cultural differences, education, and life experience can affect the pace at which an individual moves through the stages of development. Therefore, consider this chapter your basic guide into child and adult development. To make it easier for the reader to incorporate the information, the chapter has been organized by age groups.

Author: Derenda Timmons-Schubert, Ph.D.

Webster's Dictionary defines charisma as "A personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure."

Charisma is also that special quality of magnetism that each person has and uses to a certain degree. You have a special charisma to the students who look up to you, who respect and admire you: the members of your family and your friends and peers.

Whenever and wherever a person feels a positive emotion toward another, he or she imbues that person with charisma.

The skills and strategies outlined in this chapter are primarily targeted at promoting discipline in children. However, the general principles are universally applicable and should be applied with students of all ages.

In general, an atmosphere that focuses on students’ strengths, and that emphasizes honest, not excessive praise and rewards for good behavior and minimizes the use of punishment, will be most conducive to long-term learning, high levels of confidence, and will maximize students’ willingness to challenge themselves.

The fact is, the most effective and long-lasting way of changing someone’s behavior is by rewarding the behaviors that are desired. In general, if a student is showing a variety of behaviors, some good and some bad, the most effective strategy is to actually ignore the bad behaviors while making considerable efforts to reward the good ones.

The key is to honestly recognize and reward desired behavior and effort. Praising a half-effort or poorly executed skills simply reinforce that low level of performance.

Over time, the frequency of the good behaviors will increase because they are rewarded and the frequency of the problem behaviors will decrease because they are not rewarded. This is a “win-win” outcome. (There are, of course, times when problem behaviors cannot be ignored, this is discussed below).

Many people are familiar with the concept of reward or “positive reinforcement.” When a person is doing something that is desirable, you reward them in order to encourage that behavior in the future. This might include giving a hard worker a promotion, a child earning a quarter every time she makes her bed, or just telling a student “good job” after a training session. The definition of reinforcement is anything that increases the likelihood of the behavior being repeated in the future.

Praise and reward can be used successfully to help a student develop a particular martial arts skill, like a fast punch or a skillful form.

Reinforcement takes many forms, including verbal praise, prizes or trophies, doing something fun like a favorite drill, receiving compliments from one’s fellow students, or a smile from the instructor. Anything that is valued by the student can be used as a reinforcer. That is why rewards can be very individual. While student A may love sparring and find it very rewarding to be allowed to spar, it may feel like punishment to student B, who still finds sparring a little scary.

As an instructor, be careful not to assume that all of your students will like what you like, or what you liked when you were their age or skill level. Try to observe what is enjoyed and valued by a particular student and use that as a reward. Sometimes you also have to look at the relative reinforcing value of two rewards.

For example, several parents told me that they had trouble getting their kids to come to class. “They have a great time once they’re here, but it’s a battle getting them out of the house,” the parents said. Being a good psychologist, I did some further investigation. It turned out that all of these kids were doing one of their favorite activities, playing with friends, Nintendo, or watching a favorite TV show when the parents asked them to leave for karate. While the kids liked karate class, having to leave another favored activity made going to class seem like a punishment.

My suggestion was to simply change the schedule, making homework, a household chore, or some other less fun activity occur right before karate class. Since karate is much more reinforcing to the kids than cleaning their rooms, karate class turned into a reward! The result: No more battles, no more students late to class and no more unhappy parents.

Using rewards or praise sounds easy, and instructors are sometimes led to believe that a simple positive comment, or pat on the back is sufficient. As with everything, there are better and worse ways to use praise and reinforcement.

When reinforcement is used improperly, there may be several unwanted results. If rewards are overused, students may become arrogant or overly dependent on the reinforcement to perform the behavior. A child may be unwilling to spar if there’s no big shiny trophy waiting for her, for example. Too much praise may make a student think you’re insincere, and dilute the impact of your praise.

Using rewards appropriately will maximize the likelihood that students will internalize the behaviors you want them to develop, begin to perform them on their own, and learn to reward themselves.

Teaching students to physically defend themselves in appropriate situations, especially without placing them at risk of injury, can be a key to the overall success of the instructor's program. Self-defense training is as safe as basketball, sparring, scuba diving, or any other physical activity provided professional teaching standards and safeguards are in place.

The most likely lawsuit brought against a martial arts school is for negligence. Negligence is simply having a duty to do something that will help maintain the safety of those present, and failing to fulfill that duty. Depending upon the State and the ideological bent of the Court in any given area, negligence may be easier or harder to prove.