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Old 02-14-2002, 02:56 PM   #8
Jonathan
Dojo: North Winnipeg Aikikai
Location: Winnipeg, Canada
Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 265
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A lot of what you need to know to teach well will be learned in the process of teaching.

Lots of great input on this so far.

I have found that a principle discovered through personal effort is often more valued, and thus remembered, than one handed out by the teacher. When a student finds that "sweet spot" in a technique on their own that discovery seems far more deeply imprinted in them than if I had taken twenty minutes to explain how to find it. I have realized that often my comments just get in the way. Balance, though, right? Saying nothing is not what I'm suggesting you do either. When you think you should say something to a student struggling with a technique wait another five minutes (unless, of course, they ask you to help). Be careful to watch, but slow to speak. I've taken these days often to saying to repeatedly asked questions or to exclamations of frustration about technique, "Practice" or, "If you you could do it perfectly you wouldn't have to be here". My students get my point. Ultimately it is in doing the technique that the learning of it is accomplished. The teacher is merely a sign post on the road, not a car that will carry them down the road.

Just my 2 cents.

"Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend."
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