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Martial Arts Instructor Certification: How to Give Clear Instructions

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Get Certified as a Martial Arts Instructor Online

MATA Martial Arts Instructor Certification Course

Module 21-The Proper Use of Student Instructors

by Scot Conway, Esquire

The $25,000 Volunteers

Excerpt from the Martial Arts Instructor Certification Course:

Using upper ranks to teach classes has been a long-standing martial arts tradition. But, is it legal?

A California instructor had his black belts teaching under-rank classes at his studio. In exchange, he no longer charged them tuition.

This continued until one fateful day when the owner and a black belt student had a disagreement.

The vindictive student contacted the California Labor Board and reported that his instructor had been employing assistants by requiring that they teach classes each week.

This can constitute an Employer – Worker relationship. The only thing missing was payment for the workers and the taxes the government would collect if they were being paid.

The State of California investigators concluded that the owner, over the years, had a total of 25 black belts teach classes.

They defined them as uncompensated employees, which is illegal under the laws of California, and fined the instructor $1,000 per incident.

The final bill: $25,000 for the volunteers.

Lesson: Know your state laws regarding utilizing assistant instructors.

From the MATA Professional Martial Arts Instructor Certification Course

Module 1-Lesson 1: Four Keys to Giving Clear Directions

1. Specific. Effective directions are specific. They focus on manageable and precisely describe actions that martial arts students can take.

2. Concrete. Effective directions are not just specific; they involve clear actions that any student knows how to do. When directing a student to pay attention, he/she may or may not know how to do that. But if the instruction is to, “Turn your body to face me. Look at me with your eyes. Listen to me with your ears. If you have a question, raise your hand.”

These are real things: physical, simple, commonplace. There is no gray area or prior knowledge required to comply.

3. Sequential. Effective directions should describe a sequence of concrete specific actions. In the case of the student who needs help paying attention, the martial arts instructor might advise him, “John, turn your body to face me. Look at me with your eyes. Listen to me with your ears.”

4. Observable. The instructions give John actions that the martial arts instructor could plainly see him do. This is important. The instructor provided him with a series of steps that were specific and simple enough that any student could reasonably be expected to do them. That leaves John with little wiggle room to stray.

What to Do allows you to distinguish between incompetence and defiance by making your commands specific enough that they can’t be deliberately misinterpreted and helpful enough that they explain away any gray areas.

However, it’s important to distinguish between incompetence and defiance. If I ask John to pay attention or sit up or get on task and he doesn’t, knowing whether he will not or cannot matters.

If he cannot, the problem is incompetence. If he will not, the problem is defiance. I respond to these situations differently.

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Written by John Graden

John Graden is widely credited with leading the martial arts school business into the modern age. He is the founder of the first successful professional association and trade journal. MA Success editor John Corcoran first called him a “visionary” in 1995. Martial Arts World magazine dubbed him, The Teacher of Teachers. Mr. Graden’s leadership was recognized in many mainstream media outlets including a cover story on the Wall Street Journal, documentaries on A&E Network, and as a guest on the Dr. Oz Show and many others.

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