Thoughts, stories, and ideas from Sensei Steve Gottwirt

Thoughts, stories, and ideas from                  Sensei Steve Gottwirt
Some of these thoughts, stories, and personal history appeared in our newsletter, "Dō Gakuin News". Few members have been with us since our first issue in 1993. As such, ideas on this page may have been printed before, but are worth telling again.

Monday, November 18, 2013

"Huh?", "Hey!", and "Oh."

Good day at the dojo. Worked with lower Kyus on up to a San Dan and a Yon Dan. Some interesting concepts, bunkai, applications were studied. Some people ‘got’ some ideas right away, others had to struggle grasping them.

I realized that what one person may find easy another person may find difficult. Learning seems to boil down to three words: "Huh?", "Hey!", and "Oh."

A student may feel something isn’t right, but doesn’t know what to do about it … or they may not even realize there’s a problem with what they’re doing: “Huh?”
A student may understand the correction, have an
'aha' moment, or even better, discover something on their own: “Hey!”
With understanding, the problem can be fixed, the knowledge becomes ‘matter of fact’, and can be routinely applied to other situations: “Oh.”