Ive been researching the effects of age and of living a sedentary lifestyle. Im ashamed to admit that after many decades of studying and training in martial arts there came a time that it became harder and harder for me to justify the amount of time and effort that I was putting into my training, research and involvement in martial arts. I was just losing interest and the main reason was that I cant find dedicated students. I do have a few good ones, but they are far away from me! Its hard to keep yourself going when you are going it alone. A main part of the reason of my not having a large number of students is that I dont teach in the usually observed and more better understood ways that most FMA Instructors use to teach. I do use unusual methods sometimes. My system is called Modern Serrada Escrima. My teaching is scientifically based and is data driven. I constantly peruse the Internet, scientific journals and libraries in search of anything that can help my Escrima to become even better. I take the information that I have acquired and try my best to meaningful insert the newly acquired knowledge into my teaching curriculum. Sometimes my curriculum works well and sometimes it doesnt work at all, when I begin teaching a new student. Some students that come to me either dont understand my teaching methods or dont want to even try and soon quit. There is a method to my madness. I will start them out in a particular fashion and then build upon the techniques that I have taught them in a regulated way. I teach universal principles. I teach my students the basics of effective martial arts and most importantly: I teach them to personally design their very own martial art by what works for them and this is very hard to do. Everything that I do is designed to continually shock a student and force to them to go outside of their comfort zone. How can they determine what works for them if they dont know what doesnt. They have to have a true desire to become the very best, in order to learn from me. Without a real desire and a real determination they wont be able to continue learning from me and this is OK and this is why I have just a few students. I really dont want a lot of students who really dont want to become not only good, but great. There can only be one who walks away from a bladed encounter and sometimes even none. They did come to me and say that they wanted to become good in Escrima. So we will get together and soon find out, How good that they really want to become. A lot of students want to become good, but arent willing to do what needs to be done in order to become good. There will only ever be only a very select few who will achieve greatness in FMA. The Bell Curve dictates this, it is just a simple fact of the Universe. So in order for me to acquire more students I will have to either dumb my teaching down or do a better job of putting my message out. How can I put my head on my pillow at night knowing that I havent done my very best to help someone survive a really bad day. Then again, if I downgrade my teaching it may allow me to go through more students and this might allow me to find the type of students that I really want. Teaching average students how to survive a very bad day may not be all that bad of an idea, but so far I havent wavered from my dedicated effort to find and teach students in the very highest standards possible. Research data has shown me that my sedentary lifestyle is hurting me and I wont stand for this. This is why Ive gone back into training. I will do my very best over the next few days to share some of the information that I have acquired and how I have tried to use the information in improving my techniques, survivability and teaching. God Bless.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:45:16 +0000
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