Learning by Watching

Someone once commented that I'm sporadic with log entries on this Sensei's Blog page, having posted five times in June and July and only two other 2016 posts in February. I am usually not one to chit-chat; I speak/write when something needs to be said. It reminds me of the old joke where the man puts food in his dog's bowl. The dog takes a few bites, spits it out and says, "This dinner is terrible." The man is stunned and says, "Wow! My dog can talk! But how come you never said anything before this?" The dog replied, "Well, up 'til now the food's been pretty good."

I used to run an evening Karate program on Mondays and Wednesdays, the same nights my sensei held classes. He would ask me to open the dojo for him, and would arrive in time to gi up and start the class. There would be about 20-25 minutes before I’d have to leave for my program; not enough time to take part of his class and then bow off, disrupting things.

I would sit on the bench and observe his class in progress. This turned out to be invaluable to my instructing ability. I got a chance to watch how different level students work their basics, and more importantly, what kind of difficulties were caused by pivoting wrong, looking late, leaning the wrong way, not using hips effectively, etc. I developed the ability to not only see when a student has a problem with a move, but could usually tell what was causing the problem. Of course the opposite was true, too; I could see cause and effect of students who did their techniques particularly well.

I strongly suggest, if at all possible, for a sensei to periodically turn their class over to a senior student and observe their class. The sensei will probably see many details that would normally escape them while leading class, trying to keep an eye on everyone, give individualized corrections, keep the class on agenda, watch the clock, all at the same time. If a student is injured or not feeling well I suggest they come in and observe class, too. While not as good as taking class, the student still gets lots of benefits from watching, while keeping the routine of showing up to class and learning something.