2026-11-01

Teaching my regular classes at the Ross Farnsworth - East Valley YMCA.

I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything recently. Work has been very busy.

In class, I said something I want to spend a little more time on: “Good karate instructors shouldn’t like to see their students suffer, but they should like to see them struggle.”

I was having the students repeat part of a kata because they were doing something incorrectly. We went over it repeatedly, and eventually one of them got it. That’s the part I like to see: a student working through a correction until it starts to make sense.

Making students repeat the same movement over and over can seem like punishment. It isn’t. Repetition really is the only way to learn karate. Understanding an explanation is useful, but you still have to practice making your body do what you’ve understood.

That doesn’t mean I can just stand there saying “again” dozens of times and expect everyone to stay engaged. Sometimes I need to clarify the correction. Sometimes an anecdote helps break up the repetition and gives the students a moment before we return to it. The movement still needs practice, but I have to keep them involved in what they’re practicing.

There’s a struggle for the instructor in that, too. I have to insist on the repetition while keeping the students engaged enough to benefit from it. If I keep asking for another attempt without helping them understand the correction, I’m not doing all of my job. But I can’t simply give up on the correction because we’ve spent a while on it, either.

We generally don’t move on until the students mostly get it right that day. That doesn’t mean the correction is finished. We have to return to it in future classes, particularly if the old error returns. Getting something right today and being able to do it consistently are different things. The latter takes more practice.

I don’t enjoy making students have a difficult time. I do like seeing them work through something difficult and begin to get it. The repetition is there to help that happen. As an instructor, I have to stay engaged in that process, too.