Stepping into the role of Sifu

     I have been busy the last few weeks teaching a beginner's Shaolin Kung-Fu series through Free Arts of Arizona.  It has honestly been some of the most rewarding time I've spent in my life. There are 10 kids raging in age from 10 - 16  and they all seemed enthusiastic.  I gained a new appreciation for all my teachers. Especially my own Sifu.  He has often made teaching seem effortless, apart from being an amazing martial-artist he is also a very good teacher. He is great at building a rapport with his students as well as being explain and demonstrate the finer aspects to his students. 

I've ran classes before, I've filled in for my instructor a number of times. I teach groups of beginners regularly at my kwoon. One thing I've noticed about teaching martial arts is that you truly have to understand the material you are teaching. When you are going through a form or an individual technique, your body has to go through the movement and you have to be able to describe what you are doing as you are doing it. Hand Placement, Stances, the targets you are striking to while you are performing your movement. You can't go off of a pre-packaged lesson plan written by someone else.

     Teaching also allows you to work out your own questions with your movements. Try going through your techniques mentally. Perform any simple movement - i.e. A round-house kick, A horse stance, A straight punch, A joint-lock. If you've done it any number of times before, executing the move will be seamless you won't need to think about it.  Then try and perform the movement slowly and try to talk through it as if you are teaching an absolute beginner the movement for the first time. I gaurantee you that you will probably stumble a few times if you don't completely have it down or if you haven't really thought about it. Teaching will also give you a deeper level of understanding of your art. This is why I'm more than happy to help my fellow students before during and after class because I'm also deepening my own understanding of the art so I'm grateful to them for giving me that opportunity.

      There are also the things you teach without words, the things you do by your actions while in a training session. Do you show discipline and focus during your class time. Are you giving your students the deeper lessons of Kung-Fu? As I sat for the first time in front of the kids I was tasked to teach, I realized what an awesome responsibility that was and I was extremely nervous. I am also learning how to be a better teacher, I have learned to spot when I am losing my students' focus and attention. When to provide positive encouragement and when to provide firm discipline. The importance of a lesson plan for each lesson. Which students require a little more instructions to be pulled out of their shells. Its still a work in progress but hopefully one day I'll get there.

The say those who can't do......

Teaching sometimes gets a bad rep as being filled with people who were never quite good enough at their chosen field who forgo trying to work in their field and instead try to teach it to others. In Kung Fu and other martial arts it is different, usually teachers are people who have attained an extremely high level of skill and are imparting their knowledge to their students.


The teacher or Sifu in Kung-Fu is a position of high regard. Only the best disciples who have shown patience, commitment and humility are allowed to instruct other students. In most cases the Sifu or teacher is himself a student, albeit a senior student. Most traditional martial arts take a lifetime to master so it is not uncommon for most teachers to be students themselves. In most disciplines the classroom is a place of theory and most students assume their teachers knowledge is highly theoretical but not always practical. In martial arts the teachers knowledge is theoretical as well as practical. The teacher has theoretical knowledge and practical application. She has refined her application by persistent practice and has gained an understanding of the technique. He has gained the ability to digest the technique, make it a part of him and is able to pass it on in a way that other students can understand.

Lam Sai Wang - Hung Gar Master

This is not to say that all it takes is skill in the martial arts to become a teacher or that all teachers who teach the martial arts are the best martial artists. Teaching requires an exceptional amount of patience. It also requires the ability to relate to others. Not all people have the patience or the personality to teach. Not all martial arts teachers are ethical and some open martial arts schools just to turn a profit and offer very little genuine instruction. Though I would say they are generally the exception and not the rule. For example if your teacher is anything like the one in the video below, who rules by intimidation and fear, then exit and run for the hills immediately!



Teaching benefits the teacher as much as it does the student. You can only say you truly understand something if you can explain it to someone. I have tried as an assistant to show a brand new student a new form and it always amazes me how difficult it is to perform the action and teach someone at the same time. Eventually I got better at it and I was amazed at how much better I understood my material after teaching it. I had a deeper appreciation for my instructor and how easy he makes it look! If a student asks me to show them a technique or explain something to them, they thank me and I always smile inwardly knowing it is I who should thank them for allowing me to teach and improve.