The importance of passing on knowledge to colour belts.

As a Black belt or as a senior belt there are several reasons why it’s important to pass on the knowledge that you have accumulated over your own years of martial arts training to colour belts. In my opinion these are the main reasons.

• Teaching the next generation
• Different way of training and learning
• Duty to club
• A new path for your martial arts journey

Teaching the next generation
One of the best parts of being a martial artist is being able to share the experience with other people. You can share this knowledge in a few different ways such as teaching, assisting in classes or just partnering with another student to teach them a specific technique or pattern. Passing on your knowledge is a great way to open up other avenues for your own learning as well though.

Different way of training and leaning
Passing on your knowledge actually helps you with your own journey. While teaching techniques to other students is useful for the other student, it is also useful for your own learning. When you are teaching others you are having to focus on, what you are doing, how you are doing it and why you are doing it. It cements it in your own mind at the same time you are teaching someone else.
Lets for example take a look at if you were performing a Dollyo Chagi (turning kick); It’s not just, kicking with the top of your foot on a sidewards angle. We can break down what we are doing into 5 individual moves;

• Lift knee as high as you can, and on a slight angle out.
• Pivot your base foot on your toes and ball of the foot with a hip pivot.
• Extend the kicking leg, and hit your target.
• Retract the kicking leg at the knee first, and pivot hips back original position.
• Place kicking foot one ground.

While you are talking about these components with a student you may also talk about the following;

• Lift your knee high as the higher you lift your knee the higher your kick will be.
• Pivoting your base foot, allows your hips to open, and reduces the risk of knee damage.
• Pivoting your hips when kicking helps with the power of your kick.
• Retracting your foot first allows you to do a second kick if required faster.
• Placing your foot down where you want it, sets you up for the next move or kick.

When we go through the steps and talk about other details with someone else, we actually improve our own techniques and become better martial artists. So with your teaching, its not just about the other person, you are actually still training and learning, just in a different way.

Duty to club
Doing your duty to your club I feel is very important. It’s a way of thanking your club for the time, effort and resources that they have used to help get you to where you are now. Most students will hopefully find that their martial arts training has helped in other areas of their life as well. Dloing your duty is also helping your club become better as while you’re helping one student, it frees up your head instructor time to help other students on a more in depth level or allows them time to run the club better.
Doing your duty to your club also shows that you care about your club and the students in it and this will help you in becoming a better teacher. It will give you a stake in the achievements of the other students so when they achieve, it feels like you achieve as well.

A new path for your martial arts journey
As mentioned above, teaching others allows you to analyse your own techniques and improve them.  It also brings new components to your training, a new angle of focus and patience is needed as different people learn at different speed and in different ways. Being able to change and adapt to this and to different situation helps you with your own martial arts journey. Teaching others also helps with your own self-confidence and abilities. Being able to stand in front of a group of people takes a lot of guts and can be nerve wracking but you need to have faith in what you have learnt and achieved and know that you wouldn’t be asked to do it, if your head instructor didn’t think you were able to do it.

Ben Tuckfield

Ben holds the rank of 3rd Dan in Taekwondo and is part of the leadership and instruction teams at Zone Martial Arts servicing the Sutherland Shire area from the Taren Point

location.

Fundamental Theory of Haidong Gumdo and Martial Arts - Part 4

This final entry in the series on the fundamental theory of Haidong Gumdo and martial arts is about the body.

Body
Even though this is listed as the third point in the theory of Haidong Gumdo it is just as important as Spirit and Mind as it is through training the body that we can develop the other two components. By analyzing technique, pushing our body to (and beyond) its limits we learn more about our mind and our spirit. It’s the gateway to integrating martial arts into our life.

Power (Correct posture)
In martial arts we need to control and manage our power. We need to assess the amount of power we use in training and in any real life scenario. A punch can be delivered with breaking power but if all that is required is to warn someone away then using full power is excessive. The same with the sword, if we use too much power on our cuts then our sword will travel too far and leave us exposed for a counter attack. The other side of this is posture. If we overextend ourselves by applying too much power, then we can injure ourselves trying to stop the motion. Not to mention that correct posture and stance actually will deliver more power to the technique we are doing.

Speed (Swift movements)
Speed comes over time but it is something we should all strive for. It is important to know when to strive for more speed and it is only when you have gained control of the technique. Applying speed to early will just exacerbate bad technique and will be detrimental in the long term. I encourage all students to focus on the basic technique first before striving for more speed.

Balance (Stable stances)
Balance develops over time but it starts with the correct application of stance. People always want to rush to the fun stuff like punching, kicking and cutting and try to gloss over the benefits of good stance. Stance though is the bedrock of every technique we do. It’s important to make sure our stance and our feet are in time with our techniques. When we can think about balance in the martial arts moves we make, our techniques will improve and the more we will improve.

Sweat (Continuous effort)
Hard work pays off. No matter what happens in our journey, whether it’s hitting a plateau and thinking we are not improving, a technique we feel like we just can’t conquer or any of the other obstacles we hit while training martial arts, hard work and sweat will always help us get beyond it. When things get hard, a lot of people want to quit, find an easier way or just ignore that technique altogether but it’s those times we have to suck it up and keep training. Perseverance and hard work will always help us get through the tough times. So if things are looking difficult or you are getting frustrated, put in more time because sweat and continuous effort will get you though.