Ernest Cadorin

Keeping Your Students Motivated

If you belong to a karate dojo, it’s likely that at some point during your journey through the ranks, you will be required to take on some teaching responsibilities. These responsibilities might be as simple as leading a small group of lower belts or as involved as running a whole programme, but regardless of the scope, one of your top priorities will be to keep your students motivated.

That said, there are times when even the most experienced instructors find it challenging to keep their students motivated (especially the younger students!). If you are looking for ways to keep your students excited about their training, here are some suggestions I can offer:

When Leading a Group…

• If you notice someone doing something well during an exercise, point it out to the group and ask that person to demonstrate it for everyone a couple of times. The student doesn’t even have to be doing the whole technique well – just one aspect of it is enough. Even something as simple as a student keeping their hands up while kicking can be worth highlighting. A little public recognition can go a long way.

• If you are working on a technique that one of your students does particularly well, ask them to help you lead the group. The last time I was teaching flying side kicks, one of my junior students was doing a great job of launching into the kick. You should have seen the look of excitement on his face when I asked him to help me lead the group.*

• Be sure to ask for comments regularly when working in groups. Many students – especially advanced belts – love to share their knowledge and their love of the art.

When Teaching a Class…

• Get the students to help you “run” the class in some way. Recruiting them to count during drills or to accompany you at the front of the class during stretches will give them a greater sense of involvement.

• Pay attention to your overall pacing. If you stay too long on each exercise, interest will dwindle, and if you don’t stay long enough, your students will feel that they are not getting the time they need to make progress.

• Include plenty of exercises that will provide your students with instant feedback. Working with pads and focus mitts, for example, will immediately flush out any body alignment issues (and it’s a lot of fun!). Interactive drills are also a good way to get instant feedback. Even if you are just practicing kicks, doing them one-on-one with partners will give everybody a real target to aim for, and everyone will stay focused because they know each kick is being watched and assessed. It's also more mentally stimulating than working without a partner because there are additional aspects such as distancing and timing that the students need to get right.

• If there is some aspect of an exercise that your students are consistently overlooking, try incorporating a scoring system into the exercise. In katas like Tai Kyoku Shodan, for example, beginners often forget to turn their hips squarely in the direction of the front stance. However, when I get them to demonstrate the kata and tell them that I will be awarding one point for every front stance that has properly-squared hips, most of them will score 20/20. This may seem like a miracle, but it’s really just the you-get-what-you-measure management principle in action.

When Running a Programme…

• Instead of planning one class at a time, plan several classes at once (perhaps one or two months’ worth). Pick a couple of overarching themes to focus on during each group of classes. A theme could be an aspect that applies to many areas of our training (e.g. proper breathing), or a complex drill that you build up over several sessions. This will give your students a sense of continuity and something to look forward to in future classes.

• Find out if any of your advanced students would be interested in being an occasional “guest instructor” in your class. They wouldn’t have to teach a whole class, but they could take charge of one for five or ten minutes to work on one of their favourite drills. For some people, this can be a very rewarding experience.

When Managing a Dojo…

• Consider formalizing your requirements for each belt level and making them available to your students. Many business and academic organizations do this sort of thing, so why shouldn’t a dojo? Certain requirements may be difficult to quantify, but even if you provide just a few general guidelines that outline the criteria for progress, your students will know what they should be working on and will therefore train with a stronger sense of purpose.

• Once the requirements for each belt level are formalized, consider providing your students with regular progress reports. Each report should indicate how well the student is meeting the requirements for their current level and for the next. This is common practice for many activities (swimming and music lessons, for example) because, once again, you get what you measure.

I know there is a lot of great teaching expertise out there, so if you have any suggestions of your own, I’d love to read them in the comments.

* When I was a yellow belt karate-ka, my Sensei did something that was absolutely unheard of in our dojo: he put me in charge of a group of black belts. The class was working on rolls and breakfalls, and because I had a lot of experience with those techniques from my previous training, he asked me to teach the black belts how to do them properly. It was definitely one of the most exciting things I had ever done.