Martial Arts Teachers on Teaching

I bought this book as a holiday gift for my martial arts teachers. Be forewarned the book has some fairly liberal articles which may offend some schools/teachers. Overall, I thought the book offered some good tips for teaching and working with students, and has a wide variety of articles covering the martial arts from many points of view.

There are some real gems in here. Carol A. Wiley interviews a good cross-section of martial arts instructors and portrays their collective wisdom in an entertaining and fast-paced style. If you teach martial arts, you'll want to read this. Couple cool quotes from the book: "Kids love to compare and compete, and they especially love calling attention to each other's mistakes. I frequently have to remind them that I am the teacher and their job is to concentrate on their own improvement, without worrying about anyone else's... From the student's point of view, the problem is that the mind is quicker than the body - and the mouth is quicker than the mind." - Didi Goodman Sensei, Chief Instructor, Cuong Nhu Redwood Dojo. "Traditional schools emphasize self-improvement and self-realization as the primary goal, with "not losing" (in an actual fight) a result of sincere training. Modern tournament schools emphasize being better than others, that is winning (and displaying) trophies. Fun is not the purpose of traditional karate-do; the development of good character is. To the extent that one has ego-centered fun at the expense of others, one has left the realm of self-improvement behind and sown the seeds of self-destruction. On the other hand, training cannot be distasteful. It has the rewards of happiness, fascination, satisfaction, and even humor, and it is on this feedback that the instructor and the club will succeed or fail." - Dr. Elmar T. Schmeisser Sensei, American Teacher's Association of the Martial Arts (ATAMA). Lawrence Kane Author of Surviving Armed Assaults, The Way of Kata, and Martial Arts Instruction

Wiley has collected essays from 26 teachers/practitioners (six men, 20 women)of a wide variety of martial arts. In addition to the essays, the book includes an extensive bibliography of books on and about the martial arts.The backgrounds of the contributors are as diverse as their martial arts styles, and each has been allowed to develop his/her essay in quite personal and individual ways. The disadvantage of this approach is a lack of uniformity among the essays. For me, though, this is greatly outweighed by the advantage of being able to glean from a single book a wonderful diversity of resources to bring to my own martial arts practice and teaching.Some essays focus on very practical aspects of teaching: how to begin a karate course in a college or university setting; how to develop self-defense courses for audiences ranging from victims of violence to law enforcement professionals; how to keep drop-out rates among beginning students low; and more. Others address more "theoretical" aspects of martial arts pedagogy (differences in learning style and how to accomodate them; differences between teaching children and adults; etc.); still others describe the effects martial arts teaching has had on those who teach it. I can't imagine a serious teacher (or student, for that matter!) of any martial arts discipline failing to take away valuable insights -- and not just once, but every time s/he returns to the book. This will definitely be a resource I continue to use for years, and I recommend it heartily.