Those Who Can, Teach

Another article from Lockflow.com

Those Who Can, Teach
Posted by Marshal Carper


With most combat sports prescribing to an open door philosophy, seasoned veterans frequently find themselves sharing the mat with someone completely new to training. The signs are all there: their gear is still creased from the packaging, their hands and feet aren’t calloused from sparring and grappling, and their eyes gleam with the same excitement as everyone else present for training.

If you have been training for any length of time, whether it be for a few months or for a few decades, chances are that you have shared your knowledge and experience with someone else at the gym. Teaching is an important part of training that comes with a plethora of benefits. The following are five ways that teaching can aid in your development as a fighter:

1) Creates a Positive Atmosphere
Having quality training partners at your disposal is an integral part to improving your own abilities. Their skills will elevate yours and your skills will elevate theirs. Taking a moment to help a struggling newbie will ultimately benefit you. Not only will he become a better fighter, but he will be friendlier. Students who help each other act more like comrades than as rivals; everyone is training together to reach the same basic goals, and competition between training partners fades into the background.

2) Improves Your Technique
Teaching a technique requires you to break that technique down into simple steps, and you have to highlight the minor details and nuances of the move for someone else to understand and use the same move. Going through this process forces you to think critically about your technique and distill the key elements that make a particular technique effective. The more details you know about a move, the more that move will be effective in your game.

3) Increases Your Mental Awareness
As your technique improves from having to be critical of a move, your awareness of how that move connects to others will also improve. A student asking for a counter or an escape to a technique that you just showed is virtually inevitable. In this situation, you have to come up with a technical response. You are forced to see the bigger picture, to see the next step. What should your students do if they block their escape? What should they be looking for? What other options are there? Answering these questions vastly improves your ability to think about the fight game and will translate to improvements in your own training.

4) Longevity
Fighting seems to be a lifetime commitment, but competing well into the grey-haired years is not an option for most people. Learning to teach is an excellent way to remain a part of the sport, stay abreast of the developments, and continue to enjoy training without the pressures and stresses of competition. Making teaching a part of your training now will make it much easier to dedicate yourself to teaching more in the future. The wisdom that you gather in your career is valuable and personal, but for the most part, that wisdom is given to you by others. Passing your wisdom on to others is essential to the growth of the sport.

5) Rewarding
There are few things as gratifying as seeing one of your students apply something that you taught them during sparring or during competition. That visible improvement, that evidence of their understanding can be more rewarding than you personally winning a fight. You put time into someone’s life and made a difference. Few experiences can compare to that.

So, teach.