Rocky Izumi

Just to drive some of you nuts, I will make the comment that I have assigned youngsters of about 11-13 years of age to take over the teaching of the adult class. No, it was not to teach the senior adults about humility. It was because those youngsters were better instructors than the adults, for those specific areas. No one is best at everything. I would prefer that the best instructor for something teach that thing. In one of these cases, it was Ukemi. Another, it was the study of the Ken. Another was the warm-up exercises and how to do them correctly without injury.

Sometimes, it is not always the person who knows the most that is the best instructor for a group. Sometimes, a lower level instructor is able to communicate the issues better.

As you become more advanced, the blocks of understanding and blocks of movement by which you see things becomes bigger. This makes communication difficult between the instructor and student because they are talking two different languages. What is one movement for me may be five different movements for the lower rank. When this is the case, it is sometimes better for a lower rank who uses the same language to do the verbal instruction.

This is partly the reason for many Japanese instructors to not say anything when instructing. What they say will have no meaning to the student or will be interpreted incorrectly. If the student simply watches and learns, then the student can interpret the movement at their own level of understanding.

I guess this is a complex way of saying: "Just shut up and practice."

Rock