Learning from students, teaching the teachers

These days I try to keep my mainly martial arts related work separate from work produced on this blog unless it concerns a book I am writing. Today I kind of broke that rule, as it is also being used to promote my second book "When Parents Aren't Around". Kwoklyn Wan, brother of famous TV fashion personality Gok Wan, is the martial arts entrapaneur behind the Martial Arts Festival or MAF UK, to be held in Leicester on 4th and 5th April. I was kindly invited to teach my Clubb Chimera Martial Arts system on two workshops at the event. The following is an article I wrote for the festival's programme, which will be featured opposite Gok Wan's work with Kidscape, an important children's charity raising awareness and dealing with child bullying.

The short article is a brief edit of the series I wrote a couple of years back for Martial Arts Illustrated. It describes how I learnt from teaching children how to get the best out of students. Martial arts are sadly often bound up in rituals and conveyor belt money-making schemes with little thought regarding how to get the most out of students. The focuse seems to be on those who made a success of a certain style and everything else is geared towards venerating and emulating the masters of old without considering the principles the art was founded on or the needs of those wishing to learn. At CCMA I have done my best not just to turn this outmoded method of teaching on its head, but also to bring it into alignment with other effective proactive teaching technologies.

http://www.clubbchimera.com/?p=529