Nurturing a Baby

There are times when Instructors might feel teaching beginners, in the martial arts, is a mundane job by having to go over the basics.  Good instructors see things differently.  It's about challenge to get the point across to these very important people.  Beginners are new and have special needs, and need to be nurtured just like a newly born child needs a parent.  But there is also another underlying factor for the Instructor; the thought process in which a technique needs to be explained to get the point across to the beginner.

During a BJJ class of beginners, the other day, it struck me.  The thought process of going over the basics by verbally explaining the techniques is the very same process of proof reading a document.  Proof reading can be done by reading it out aloud to yourself to see if you can pick up any errors or see if it makes any sense.  I thought, ‘wow’, this is really enjoyable.  I mentioned to the students how I also had learned something by doing the very basic stuff with them because I can see unfolding bits of the puzzle as I was explaining the techniques.  They also said, 'wow' (trust me, I'm having a giggle here). 

The bread and butter stuff sometimes seems to get put on the back burner because we always want to be excited with new ideas and ‘toys’ not realising the basics which are taught to beginners are more important than the higher level stuff because they are the foundations that hold the art rock solid.
GA