GrrrArg Posted June 23, 2003 Posted June 23, 2003 Guys Im 25 and have been teaching for a few years Ill tell you from exp. get a bit older because no matter how much you know adults will look down upon young teachers. Just the way the world is. It took me time to win the over early but the older I have gotten the less I have had to prove myself to new students. I know what you mean, I sempai for my instructor but sometimes its hard to get the respect (that generally you deserve) from older students, although since I got my brown belt this has changed quite dramatically which is weird because its only one up from the last one I had...
Kirves Posted June 23, 2003 Posted June 23, 2003 Many people think "brown is almost black". Weird but so it is. Also, older people are often suspicious until you earn their respect. A high belt rank may help, but the best way is to just show them. When you spar in a class, spar with each one of them among the class and when they see for themselves that you are better than them, they will begin to respect you and feel you are "worthy" of instructing them.
GrrrArg Posted June 27, 2003 Posted June 27, 2003 True but my style has three brown belts (added stripes) and people know this, perhaps I earned their respect without realising it? hmmm It helps that most of them are rather nice people and many of the adults joined because their kids did and im quite good with kids (or I scare them, one of the two).
Kirves Posted June 27, 2003 Posted June 27, 2003 Tim quite good with kids So you can beat them and when you do?
GrrrArg Posted June 27, 2003 Posted June 27, 2003 Tim quite good with kids So you can beat them and when you do? Who's Tim then Kirves? Most of kids beat the living hell out of me actually, they look nice enough then their suddenly flying through the air teeth first-and if they did manage to bite me it would probably go septic because most kids have questionable hygeine at best
GrrrArg Posted August 9, 2003 Posted August 9, 2003 Incidentaly I've just gone full time for my club. This means trying to get new members and helping out in more classes. Don't know how long i'll do it for but it does show you can make a career in the MA's.
jushin Posted August 12, 2003 Posted August 12, 2003 I have a career. Basically a kickboxing gym owner.
Sasori_Te Posted August 18, 2003 Posted August 18, 2003 Jushin made apoint that needs to be further stated. If you do by some chance stick with it and open your own school, make sure that you include a gym or some other such activity so that making money from martial arts isn't what you're depending on. I have several friends that are school owners. I owned one previously. I didn't do it as my soul source of income because I want to teach my art, not some twisted version that invariably happens when you open a commercial school. The reason I say this is because all of my friends that do have commercial schools end up selling out their art to some degree to keep the money coming in. The bottom line with a commercial school is profit. You have to keep your customers happy and coming back to spend money with you or you go hungry. Or better yet, your kids go hungry. The best my friends hope for these days is to further their own training in a direction that they want to go. They certainly don't get to teach the way they would like. A block is a strike is a lock is a throw.
GrrrArg Posted August 19, 2003 Posted August 19, 2003 ^ I agree with what you say in part. I don't quite get what you mean by saying they can't teach the way they want to though, can you explain abit more? I would say that when a comercial club becomes big enough they are more able to teach in the way they want to teach and do not have to worry about going all out to keep members by giving away BB etc:
Sasori_Te Posted August 19, 2003 Posted August 19, 2003 What I mean is every instructor that I know that owns a commercial school has had to compromise their art and the way it has been taught to them in order to keep students. There are several reasons for this compromise that actually goes beyond the scope of the discussion here. A block is a strike is a lock is a throw.
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