This goes beyong learning forms and techniques. This is an idea of what we can instill in out students, making us no different than the educators we saw from kindergarten on up. If we as an industry wish to be seen as a legitimate form of education, then we need to find a way to teach values to our students as well as techniques. No this does not mean to babysit them; it means to make them better people.
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Respect and Appreciation: If someone respects and appreciates human values and the beliefs of others. We are taught in the martial arts to respect our instructor and show respect for the training hall. There are salutes and bows. We also teach to respect all life and to use our weapons if needed.
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Work Habits: Discipline is one of the building blocks of a martial arts education. Otherwise you wouldn't do hundreds of punches and blocks because someone in pajamas tells you to. As the instructor, your job is to instill this discipline by teaching the student to set goals and to work towards them until the goals are achieved, and then to set new goals. These kind of work habits can easily spill over
into the non-martial arts world.
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Social Competency: As the instructor, your goal is create an organized social setting; not necessarily within your own school, but elsewhere. It would be nice that if you were in trouble, you could pick up the phone, call a Kenpo school and they would come to assist you, like any good brother or sister of the arts. The school
will also teach social interaction as you have to work with instructors and students of a variety of backgrounds.
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Ethical Behavior: Teaching a combative art to someone who does not understand or have ethics is dangerous. They can be a loose cannon. As an instructor, you need to teach students the correct uses for their knowledge and instruct them on what constitutes a self-defense situation.
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Lifelong Learning: The instructor needs to consider age groups when planning curriculums in order to encourage students to study the arts throughout their life because they will find new goals at every level. There is a reason we say the black belt is really the beginning.
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Physical and Mental Health: This is one of the more obvious benefits of the martial arts. This is the reason we have gym class from kindergarten on up. As instructors we need to make available nutritional information, exercise guidelines, and various programs for students. In the Flame, more will come on this level, but we currently have an article on Stretching and Flexibility.
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Understanding the World: Believe it or not, a study of the arts can help someone understand the world and our relationship with it. Kenpo is a study of motion, so principles of motion come into play when learning it; having anatomical knowledge helps with strikes and where to place them.
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Awareness of our Relationship to the World Community: The KenpoNet's pride. This site provides us an accessible route to meet and exchange ideas with one another on a global scale. There are also competitions and seminars where people come from around the world. On the KenpoNet Forum you can talk to people around the world as well.
Works Consulted
- National Association of Professional Martial Artists- NAPMA
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