Tough teachers

[Grimslade]

I wanted to know if anyone could feel my pain...

At my first karate school (wado-ryu) There was a Sempi there named Zach. He could only come once a month and I wondered why. It turns out that he was the unarmed combat drill seargent at the infamous Paris Island Marine Training Camp. He was the hardest teacher I EVER met. He loved what he called the "twelve step ladder", the ladder is when you (without stopping) do one pushup,then two,then three,then four,then five,then six, then seven,eight,nine, and on up.. ann with no break BACK DOWN. The worst part was, when the pushups werent machine perfect... he put his foot on your back and made them three times as hard. And sparring was r... you can guess... look at what his job is. But overall his training helped me in the long run

Anyone else had hard teachers?

[greenpaulo]

Putting his foot on your back is quite demening dont u think? Thats the marines for you My teachers pretty hard but very relaxed at the same time, its a good mixture. He makes us work our balls off but makes us want too at the same time. If it helped you in the long run then thats good

[Menjo]

I wanted to know if anyone could feel my pain...

At my first karate school (wado-ryu) There was a Sempi there named Zach. He could only come once a month and I wondered why. It turns out that he was the unarmed combat drill seargent at the infamous Paris Island Marine Training Camp. He was the hardest teacher I EVER met. He loved what he called the "twelve step ladder", the ladder is when you (without stopping) do one pushup,then two,then three,then four,then five,then six, then seven,eight,nine, and on up.. ann with no break BACK DOWN. The worst part was, when the pushups werent machine perfect... he put his foot on your back and made them three times as hard. And sparring was r... you can guess... look at what his job is. But overall his training helped me in the long run

Anyone else had hard teachers?

That sounds so great, I'd love to have some classes like that. My sensei is really serious, so the harder you work the harder he works you. So naturally about 30min into each class I think I'll die of exaustion.

Any sort of punishment is usually done through pushups after class(Usually 5-7 sets of 20 with 6 second breaks in between), I do knuckle push ups just to show its not enough to keep me down.

[Truestar]

Our instructor is quite the opposite. He makes sure we have fun, but we still get the work done. And usually when he puts his foot on our back, it's to help us. He doesn't scream but he encourages us. However, one of his fellow black-belts was pretty tough. She wasn't that tough, but she certainly wasn't easy, you know? She wasn't the nicest person in the first place, and that carried onto the class. TKD wasn't very fun when she came, thankfully college came.

[jaymac]

Wow truestar, I wonder if other students felt the same way about that female instructor. Did anyone ever quit his school because they didn't like her?

[ncole_91]

That ladder sounds really hard, 144 pushups at once without stopping and they have to be perfect. I need to try that lol.

[Truestar]

Wow truestar, I wonder if other students felt the same way about that female instructor. Did anyone ever quit his school because they didn't like her?

No, no one ever quit. She wasn't bad enough to make us completely miserable.

[aefibird]

My karate instuctor is tough but in a good way. He's a great friend but no-nonsense ('old school') in the dojo too. You certainly know you've had a hard session when you train with him!

[Menjo]

My karate instuctor is tough but in a good way. He's a great friend but no-nonsense ('old school') in the dojo too. You certainly know you've had a hard session when you train with him!

I wish I had posted my other answer it this way... .

[Fenris-wolf]

Yeah, we do the "12-step ladder", though it is not put to us that way - it's usually 1-10-1, and can be anything from pressups to burpees to kicks. Kicks are good; once we did 1-20-1. Ow.

Well, teaching styles are very personal. I do enjoy the "tough" style you're talking about - I feel off being yelled at etc. And I love hard sparring. Not knock-out hard, but recently we've been doing all this "light" sparring and it's just annoying.

But personally I deal very badly with negative reinforcement. This may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it's one thing to have someone yell at you to "just do it - I'm not counting till you do it hard", quite another to tell you that nothing you ever do is good enough. Especially in contrast to making other fighters do 1/2 the work and praising them for it. Can you hear the bitterness?