In class this week I mentioned that as we progress we must take the reins and be responsible for our own growth. Our instructors should not need to provide all the information as they did when we were White Belts.

On reflection over a few days I realised that there are times where students are not willing/able to do this. It seems that a bit of growth is missed.

We need to take responsibility for our own learning and become more independent as we progress.

Instructors

As an instructor is the role centred on being the source of all information your students receive? My personal experiences suggest that there are very good reasons to have exposure to other instructors.  Each instructor has (should have) their own teaching attributes, these allow them to convey information in their own unique way. Each instructor will convey concepts in a way that will work for a groups of students but not always all students. I have experienced this myself having being told the same thing over and over but not understanding until another instructor changed one word suddenly thinking “why was that so hard to understand”

The 2019 Camp had this group of Ko Dan Ja to learn from

Good instructors are able to explain a technique or concept in more than one way enabling them to convey the information to a broader range of member.  They garnish ideas  from other instructors that work for them. This is why it is so important to have exposure to variety of instructors.  At the 2019 Australian National Camp we were fortunate in that we had a large number of Sa Bom present who come from a range of backgrounds uniting in the Moo Duk Kwan

Instructors generally do not want you to be clones of them, they treasure your individuality as much as much as your standardisation.

Our Learning

We all learn in different ways and it is important that we understand how we learn as individuals. This enables us to accelerate our own education. As Martial Artists our relationships with others Martial Artists (Instructors, Seniors, Juniors and Peers) evolve. With our personal instructor these often become extremely close.

As our understanding grows there are times when our instructors may not always be able to provide us with the information we want. It is not a shortcoming in any way just a slight divergence in the journeys of two people. Accepting this is part of our personal growth. Understanding that there are many different paths on this journey opens opportunities to learning from others and researching for ourselves.

It is up to the individual to take control of their own learning when this begins to occur. This eventually leads to different relationships with instructors becoming more like a Mentor / Guide / Peer. Perhaps you begin discussing concepts together to develop each others understanding of them further. A good place to look is at the National organisations for Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan

If you ask your instructors they will often tell you that they learn more from the questions their students ask than they ever did as beginners.

This is a link to the US Federations Gup and Dan Manual that has good range of information in it Member Manual