Instructor Investment and Engagement
I want you all to think about this; what are we doing? As a kwoon, what are we teaching? What are our goals? What would be our ultimate home run?
Quick and easy answer is “we’re teaching Kung Fu”. This answer is the equivalent of answering “practice” when defining how to improve your Kung Fu. Well, yes. But I hope we all delve deeper when we’re working on our own Kung Fu, looking at details when improving our skill, applying our understanding after a lesson.
When teaching, the absolute ultimate goal in my mind is the overall wellbeing, now and in the future, of the student or child in front of me. I do not control their diet. I do not control their home life. I do not control any of the events they will experience, positive or otherwise. I do not control what they are taught, outside of the one or two hours a week they are within these walls.
The only way we have any influence over their wellbeing is to give them as much chance to mould it for themselves. To provide as many tools as we can to set them up for success and happiness in their lives, from the moment we meet, and hopefully beyond the last time we see each other. Lasting skills and tools, that is what we strive to provide.
Kung Fu is the vessel for this. I have not chosen to dedicate my life to Kung Fu because it taught me to kick through a board. Whoopdee doo. I give my time and energy because I know the skills it gave me and the impact they had. It opened doors for me, provided opportunities. Opportunities that I had created myself, knowingly or otherwise. Created by me due to the skills and structure given to me by my own instructors.
When developing new drills or new program initiatives, when dealing with the rest of the instructor team, when deciding how to manage a distracting child, keep this goal in mind. How are your actions (or inaction!!!) going to contribute to the wellbeing (or detriment) of the individual in front of you? Does it serve you, the program, this overarching purpose, to reprimand or to encourage? Will anyone grow?
We have an extreme amount of influence on the students, specifically the kids, for better or worse. There is no neutral on this, if you are in the room you are an influence. Your inaction tells a story to the student. Unfortunately, inactions is usually interpreted as the instructor is “too busy” or doesn’t care.
If you believed your instructors didn’t care, would you still be here? Would you have achieved your current rank? Gained any of the benefits?
Be the instructor you want. Knowledgeable, skillful, deeply involved and invested in your future. Willing to get into the thick of it with you, not just watching from the sidelines.