The Pedestal: What We Expect From Our Teachers

I have come to wonder if placing our teachers on pedestals is about elevating them, or if it’s really about lowering and restricting ourselves?  Elevating our teachers to a realm beyond what is humanly achievable can be a strategy for minimizing our own expectations, and thus our disappointments. If the goal is unachievable there are fewer uncomfortable demands, and one’s Read More …

Am I Learning Fast Enough?

It is tempting as a teacher to always respond to this question with “Yes”. I have found that people these days seem to be hard on themselves and are terrible at accurately assessing their own progress—I certainly have seen this in myself. It is difficult to view progress subjectively because with learning comes a greater awareness of what you don’t know. This continually expanding Read More …

How to Create Empowered Learners; Not Just Competent Practitioners

A good teacher doesn’t just impart information to their students, they empower their students to be excellent learners. In my classes, I’m thinking not just about how I can increase my students’ ability with a given technique in that moment, but what I can give them that will help them meaningfully practice, implement, and build from that technique after. Here Read More …

Three Things You Should Be Saying to Your Martial Arts Students

When you’re standing in front of your students you have an opportunity to not only convey martial arts technique but also to positively shape thinking. The psychology with which we approach learning and practice is incredibly influential over our success at that practice and our energy to keep at it long term. Here are some things you should be saying to Read More …

Taking Agency in Learning

The drone of uniformly delivered content to rows of kids locked into desks is the initiation into formal learning that many of us come from. A system designed to output little industrial cogs who are themselves uniform. This is a system that is unfortunately devoid of passion and builds a habit for learning that places the student in the position Read More …