Recently, I shared that I’m beginning my 24th year with Chuck Norris’ Kickstart Kids. Twenty-four years of character-building, lesson planning, and watching young people grow into their best selves. It’s been a journey filled with grit, grace, and more than a few bruises. After that post, someone asked me a question I hadn’t considered in…
Category: Teaching
Still Going Strong: My 24th Year with Kickstart Kids
The ringing of the school bell. The odiferous scent of mats. The noise of the kids in the hall. For going on 24 years, these have been the backdrop to my life’s work as an instructor with Chuck Norris’ Kickstart Kids program. More than just teaching karate, I’ve been a part of a movement to…
A Teacher’s Reward Part 2
This is a repost of something I wrote years ago. Everything said here remains true. I updated where needed for accuracy. I started teaching martial arts a long time ago. When I started, my biggest passion was simply to share something I really love. For me and for many others like me, martial arts are…
When Injury Takes a Toll
Through the years I have had many setbacks in training. I suffered some pretty serious damage to my knee in my early teens. This single injury resulted in several more injuries through the course of my life, and today I have what I call a bad knee, and a worse knee. Of course, the knee…
When Students Leave for Good
I am facing the truth that a couple of my long-term students are about to go off to college, and I am facing the fact that there is no telling when I will see them again. This is a post based on the random thoughts that I tried to bring into something resembling a blog…
Catch What is Right, Correct What is Wrong
Many years ago, there was a standard style of teaching martial arts. Stand at the front of the class, and bark commands. As the number of martial arts schools expanded and schools began competing over a small number of students, different styles of teaching emerged. Some had benefits, others did not. Of course, there are…
Eat Bitter
You read that right, I said eat bitter. I did not mean eat better. I cut my teeth in the traditional Chinese martial arts, and there is a common saying that translates into English as eat bitter. This is essentially a common sense idea that you have to put in the work in order to enjoy…
KICKSTART KIDS Sponsorship Drive
It is that time of year again! Kickstart Kids is a non-profit organization that teaches Character Through Karate. We operate in schools around the State of Texas offering a martial arts class as an alternate PE credit elective, and we work with some of the best kids in the State. We give them a place…
A Teacher’s Reward
I started teaching martial arts a long time ago. When I started, my biggest passion was simply to share something I really love. For me and for many others like me, martial arts are more of an approach to life than a sport or hobby. If you have ever had a moment where you have…
KICKSTART KIDS Sponsorship Drive
KICKSTART KIDS is a nonprofit that uses martial arts to recruit and retain students while teaching them life skills and character strengths. I am privileged to be a part of this group. I get to teach martial arts all day, have dinner with my family in the evenings, and I can honestly say that I…
Teaching Martial Arts: A Positive Classroom
We all have to be mindful of our interactions with our students. As I have said in the past, it is easy to catch people, kids especially, doing things wrong. There is no special skill or training needed to do this. The real challenge lies in catching them doing things right, and finding ways to…
Strategies for Teaching Martial Arts: Student Praise
As we return to the subject of teaching martial arts, I want to address the subject of praising the student’s progress. There are many opinions on the topic, and mine may just be one more thrown in the mix, but working with more kids on a daily basis, and teaching more classes in a day…
Strategies for Teaching Martial Arts: Attitude
I am going to offer a series of articles intended for instructors who teach children, but I think there may be something of value to those parents of children who are training in the martial arts in that I may be able to offer a way for the parent to judge the effectiveness of their…
Martial Arts Parents, Please Slow Down
Before I start, I want to note that this post is inspired by another post on another blog. For the source article, please read here. We are facing a problem which, in many ways, has been accumulating for quite a while now. In the martial arts, the problem has the potential to fundamentally change how…
Children in the Martial Arts
As everyone who knows me is aware, but for the benefit of those who may not know me but still read my posts, I teach martial arts for a living. I work for Chuck Norris’ KICKSTART KIDS Foundation. We teach a karate class as an alternative PE credit elective. We are a part of…
For the Martial Arts Instructors out there…
Always on your mind should be the idea of team building. There are those who find this contradictory to the individual nature of martial arts training, but within your school or organization, you should be functioning as a team. Encourage your students, but teach them to encourage each other as well. The best teammates are…
Keep it real
I would like to see Instructors take that leap of faith, and stop teaching metaphysical garbage. When I teach, I am open and honest with my students. I teach them that everything in martial arts needs to be seen under the scientific method – any claims need to be observable, explainable, testable, and repeatable. If…
To McDojo, or not to McDojo? THAT is the question.
I often joke that “if I had it all to do over again, I’d open a McDojo.” The truth is not really all that far from the statement. See, for years I took an almost masochistic pride in NOT being successful in my commercial schools. I taught, and made little to no money for it,…
A Better Approach to Teaching Martial Arts
This post is in response to an email from an instructor wishing to know more about how teachers teach. Working in a public school, I have had the chance to study up close the methods used by some very effective teachers, and apply what I learn from them in my own classes. This is just…
New Book
Within the next week or so, my latest book will be available. This one, titled “Kick it to the Next Level, Improve your martial arts instruction without selling out” is not about Hung Gar specifically, but is a collection of articles on teaching martial arts. I will post the link once it is available!
Random thoughts on the arts
In a comment on a previous article, someone mentioned that there is still the “art” in martial arts which must be considered. Not furthering on the comment, but rather using it as a point of departure… This comment really made me start to think. One of the first things which popped into my mind…
The 80/20 Rule
Vilfredo Pareto designed a mathematical formula to describe the grossly unequal distribution of wealth in his country. He discovered that 80% of the wealth was controlled by just 20% of the people. Later still, he observed that in his garden 20% of the peapods produced 80% of the peas. After Pareto first made his observations…
Kung Fu Forms in Hung Gar
There are three forms which form the core of the Hung Gar system. While many schools use differing supplemental forms, Gung Ji Fuk Fu Kuen is the first of the core forms to be taught in nearly all Hung Gar schools. Gung Ji Fuk Fu Kuen is a very long form which will challenge the…
Effective Teaching for the Martial Arts Instructor
This one is for the martial arts instructors who want to have students pass their tests because they deserve to move up in rank and not have the student move up in rank simply because they are still around. Personally, I make my students earn their rank, and the test is simply the last…
Why your Kung Fu Kwoon is a Non Profit Venture
Like most Kung Fu instructors, my kung fu club is small, and never seems to grow beyond that small but dedicated base of students. In spite of many attempts, I find as many other instructors of the Chinese Martial Arts that I never seem to crack that invisible wall of twenty students. I wish I…
More Psuedo Masters
Okay, maybe this is a knee jerk “shoot myself in the foot” type of reation, but I cannot let some stupidity go. I have been trying, for just over one year to begin a kung fu club at the Watauga Community Center. I have been unable to get their highly qualified staff to show the…
Modern Students and Instructors
There are many modern martial artists who love nothing more than to speak ill of modern martial arts students. I do not like to follow this line of thinking. But, for the purposes of discussion, (feel free to email and discuss any topics with me, as some of you already do), I am going to…
Fraud
Most martial arts instructors have their hearts in the right place. They are teaching the martial arts out of a genuine love for the martial arts, and a heartfelt need to share this wonderful gift with others. There are, however, many frauds out there. If one is not careful, these people will rob you blind….
Wallace Smedley 