My Instructor is going away for his hols next week, for 2 weeks. This means that the classes will be run by the assistant instructors, of which there are 3. Usually classes are taken by the main instructor and the assistants are just those black belts that have taken the instructors course and have insurance, its not like they have been chosen for the teaching ability etc. Now 2 of these assistants are really good, take good energetic lessons, and importantly to me I respect them, they push themselves hard in training, and if they are exhorting me to try harder I know that they would try just as hard as me. However the 3rd Instructor is basically pants. The last time they took a lesson I nearly left in disqust. The lesson was boring, spent alot of time standing round doing nothing. We were treated like a bunch of 3 year olds being 'told' of rather than encouraged, as well as embarrising people who weren't good enough. What makes it even worse is that this person hardly ever trains, is more concerned with making others treat them 'with the respect the deserve' due to their high rank, rather than earning that respect. Doesn't warm up if they don't feel like it, doesn't spar and if they do its without any contact, won't compete as there to old (younger than me) etc and does nothing to earn the respect they think they are owed. My question is what should I do. Should I 1. Let my instructor know how cheesed off we all are that they will be taking a lesson. (Adult responsible answer) 2. Just miss their sessions. 3. Be the student from hell during their session. (Not very nice but lots of fun)
Walk in and see who's teaching. If its the jerky guy don't go in. If its the good instructors, hang out and have fun.
Don't do any of those, the best thing to do is to go to their classes, be very respectful to them, if you are respectful to them, most likely they will respect you back, and may be in a good mood to do good classes. Don't you want to have a good time, and learn what you need to learn? I've been in that situation before, I took my own advice, and they were in a good mood to teach a good class
Train to the absolute best of your abilities, as I'm sure you always do, despite the guy you dislike. Don't let the poor instructor spoil your training for you. If you miss lessons for any reasons, who's "won"? There's no harm in having a quiet word with your normal Instructor too perhaps, though that depends on your relationship with him/her. MItch
Maybe you could ask the two decent instructors if either of them are taking the lesson and say its because you like the way they teach and one of them will proberly take it.
Already know which days the 'poor' instructor is taking the classes as have a copy of the timetable. The lessons are pretty pointless, so am going to go to a different club that a usualy train with on other days and train there. I have to pay for my traiing and give up my time so I want it to be good training, not standing round for 20 minutes and doing endless patterns.
That's what I would do if I really couldn't stand the instructor. I imagine there is something better you can do with the time that is more productive. And, if he doesn't get many students, maybe he'll change his attitude. Normally I think you can learn something from any instructor... but there are cases when it just isn't worth the hassle and bad feeling. Find something better to do and let your mind enjoy it!
Id have to agree with thomas on this one its pointless going toa class where you wont do anything productive. So why does your Instructor let someone liek this take his class anyway?? I know theres only 3 ppl i allow to cover for me and two of them are my instructors
Now that bit sounds like a great class to me, I love patterns Seriously though, that's a good idea, to use it as an opportunity to train elsewhere and broaden your experience. Be interesting to know how the other club compares. Mitch
You poor guy In my club, we are lucky to have the black belts we have to teach us when our sabiomnim is away. It's usually just Emma, who I think is a second Dan that teaches us, and we always have good sessions with her...although I wouldn't mind if Paul took us for a lesson
The other clubs great, instructor is Adie Jones. The guy who does Hwarang on TAGB patterns video. I train at about 3 other clubs as often I can. (3 different 5th Dans in our area and they all have great clubs to train at.)
Excellent Taliar, nice position to be in I've always trained at several clubs, often because a club might only train twice a week and I wanted to do more. Having input to your training from different perspectives is great, I think I've particulalry benefitted from having female Instructors as well as male. I don't do it so much now, running my own takes up too much time! But really, 3 5th Dans in the area, it must be the most dangerous town in North Wales Cheers, Mitch
A dojang is a school. You go to school to learn. In highschool, if you didn't like a teacher did you just not go in and skip out? No. Why? Because you would fail. Even if you didn't learn a SINGLE thing. This instructor that you dislike, you do not have to explain anything to him if you don't want to. If you haven't got anything nice to say don't say anything at all. Go to your class, practice to the best of your ability, show respect to him, and treat him like you would want to be respected if you were in his position. Taekwondo is about respect. You show it. Not overly, just show it. Be courteous. And above all, don't leave in the middle of class. I say this because I have also run into this sort of problem with numerous assistants who share basically all if not more of the problems with yours. Wait it out, and if you can't tak eit any longer go to your head instructor and talk to him about it. Talking with people is a greta way to lift the load and frustration off of oyur back. That's my advice, others may think different. This is what I would do, so you can do what you'd like cheers. oh and endless patterns class? I teach classes like this sometimes. Some people get bored and want to go over everything. If you take the highschool example. You learn one or two thigns per day and then you practice, review and test. Do you go over thigns you learned in grade 3? nope
Its not about liking the instructor its about a using my valuable time to its best adavntage. Fortunately were not in school so we do have a choice and only by exercising that choice can we force higher standards. (There speaks some true capitalism for ya!!!!) When you were in school you went, but then if you were doing A'level maths you'd have a teacher who could do Maths not an English teacher. I prefer not to waste my time.
I train at the same club as Taliar and i will be training at other clubs while this person is taking lessons. The other two who are covering lessons are fine and i have no problem with training under them but the person who Taliar is talking about sets a very poor example to the other students and i find it hard to respect them. Basically they are lazy but when it comes to taking a lesson they rant on about students not putting enough effort in which to me is so hypocritical. Its a case of 'Do as i say not as i do'
