Do you think you can be better than your instructor?

[Ghost]

Or do you aim to be by a certain stage, and i dont mean when you are 60 and getting too old to teach anyone long enough to pass everything on.

Sometimes people are so in awe of their instructors they create a glass ceiling.

If we simply thing our instructors are the best full stop then we might be limiting ourselves. look at what happens over a few generations.

your instructor is at say level 10.
you dont make it to as good as he is and reach level 9
your student has the same mindset and reaches level 8
a few generations later and not much is going on.

Thats only a theory and it wouldnt play out as cleanly as that but you get the idea.

We should be looking at the paul vunaks, ramon dekkers, dan inosantos, mike tysons and working out how we can be better than these guys. Not just hoping that one day we might be as good as them. Else martial arts has peaked in the 90s and its downhill from here on in.

Its a simple point i know but worth remembering all the same.

[Guest]

The secret Ghost, if you do it right, is that everyone gets better – students and instructors.

A number of my students are far superior to me in a range of areas, that’s just evolution and it should be encouraged. However, those students now help my game in those areas, so the teaching becomes cyclical, and I get better also. Therefore, we all stay on top of each other’s game.

This has always been the culture of JKD under Guro Inosanto. Its why not only has the quality of students improved through the generations, but also the teachers we respect just seem to keep getting better too.

[fire cobra]

I know from being older and training longer than my students that some of them now have better skills in certain areas than i have,also i know that some of my students always had better attributes at the very beggining than i ever did.

However i also know that i am still growing in ways that i am sure my students havent seen the bigger picture on yet(but will when they are older!) i try to teach some of these ways to the younger members of my group but there mind set are usually on other areas,and thats how it should be i think(after all we cant do everythink at once!).

Some years ago,10 actually i pushed one of my students towards Yoga,i felt he would be ideally suited to it,now he is a fully qualified Yoga teacher and has his oown classes,he is also my Yoga teacher and he teaches every morning.

Personally i think we should always guide our students to improve in every area,and push ourselves to attain new levels,constant physical,mental and spiritual growth,and when our students surpass us they can become our teachers and so on and so forth,setting higher levels for the next generations to come .

[Garland]

I believe the goal of every good teacher, parent, mentor, etc...wants the people they teach to succeed and surpass them. (but do we ever STOP learning? EVEN if we stagnate, we still learn!)

I think that everyone is a potential student and everyone is a potential teacher, and in many cases an instructor learns as much from his student as the opposite.

Very few people have nothing to offer or teach, and those that fit this cateogory are usually the type that don't try to learn, either.

[peppi]

A number of my students are far superior to me in a range of areas, that’s just evolution and it should be encouraged. However, those students now help my game in those areas, so the teaching becomes cyclical, and I get better also. Therefore, we all stay on top of each other’s game.

You said it great

[Tant01]

I already am better than many of them.


I have always told my students that my job is to make them better than me. That they should surpass me. because I am giving them everything I know and trying to help them avoid any mistakes I made along the way while teaching them all the tricks I learned.

But I also tell them that I am training hard to make sure I can stay ahead of them as long as I can.

I said they should surpass me, I didn't say it would be easy.

Well said EF...

[FLMKane]

Do you think you can be better than your instructor?

My answer is YES