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Stevo
24th April 2003, 13:38
Occasionally I like to take up a totally different sport just to re-acquaint myself with what it's like to be an absolute novice again. It's a very humbling exercise, often painful, and sometimes humiliating, but I find it a great way to refine my teaching skills. Does anyone else use this approach? What benefits have you found? :confused: :rolleyes: :eek: :look:

tddeangelo
24th April 2003, 15:41
I don't know that I use it as a "method," but after 9.5 years of jujutsu, I've taken up iaido. While not completely new and different, it is substantially so. During the first month or two, trying not to fall flat on my face while wielding a bokuto was a nicely humbling experience! It was kind of refreshing to see a different and new path before me for the first time in almost 10 years. I'll never leave my jujutsu training, and I am and always will be learning new things and traveling further on that path, but it is really fun starting down a new path at the same time. Makes my training really interesting!

Regards,

Charles Choi
25th April 2003, 07:15
It's a very humbling exercise, often painful, and sometimes humiliating, but I find it a great way to refine my teaching skills. Does anyone else use this approach? What benefits have you found?

I recall when 'switching' to another form of martial art, the immediate feeling of having to completely learn he ropes again, from both instructor and fellow student. In my path, I find moreso that in martial arts, your prior experience is less regarded - most likely due to style. Yes, it is humbling and in fact, shows how what kind of self view you have built around youself/others.

To your point: I think that interaction in any sport or martial art allows you to experience others characters. You then relate those characters and to your students. To continually learn this way, I find that it encourages a clearer mind and the development of a better social heart. That means that you learn how and how not to train others but to teach in such an efficient way that you get to the student's action point (ie the point at which the student says "Ahh, I understand") as soon as possible to encourage technique.

I find with sport, that people are more encouraging of who you have become and what use you are on the field (universal games and rules). The pressure of performance almost forces one to accept that further lessons are to be learned. One of the most important lessons I have learned from sport, is the endurance: physical and absolute mental exhaustion, and the point beyond to which is always reached for.

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Charles Choi