How do you teach?

[Blaine Stevens]

Yes, thank you Brent for sharing your thoughts and insight! I knew it'd be a interesting topic to ask from the 10th Planet Instructors and I'd like to thank everyone who's shared their thoughts thus far! Keep em coming and feel free to post more if something pops up! The more insight I can glean and the more I can learn and write down now the better!

[Adam Jordan]

I say Chris is right on!

Totally not a cop-out answer but you should check out some of the work of John Bransford and Information Processing Theory. His work, "How People Learn", really gives you ONE insight into human learning. I say it applies to jiu-jitsu just as much as it does Algebra... But hey, that's but one man's opinion...

http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=WaCW7i92lYkC

[Paul Wade]

Good stuff Brent.

[Shawn Arnold]

Thanks Chris and Brent! I have a bad reputation for talking to much, going off on tangents, etc. When I ask my students what they want me to work on they all say the same thing, that I show too much at a time.

[Landon DuMar]

First, don't teach to show off ur knowledge; teach to connect to your audience as fast as possible. This means don't talk too much. People forget details if they get more than 4.

Second, do an 80-20 split of drilling to talking. People learn more from experience than listening to you.

Third, interrupt drilling with one extra detail every couple of minutes. This way they can slowly scaffold their learning.

Fourth, understand a groups attention span. When everyone starts talking, they are done with the move or don't understand it.

Fifth, posture is the starting point for every move. If u can't explain perfect positioning, you can't really teach the move, it's context, and how to troubleshoot.

Sixth, never shame a student. It's ur failure if they can't learn

Seventh,teach according to frequency of use. Don't spend 90% of ur time teaching a move that appears 1% of sparring time, like inverted guard triangle defense.

Eighth, don't use left or right when explaining a move. Find reference points on the opponents body. This way people learn how to be ambixtrous.

Ninth, when someone asks you about a problem they are having, start at least two steps before that move in answering. Usually the part they want help with was ruined before the reference point they gave.

Tenth, use statistics. Don't teach what you hope will work, teach what has worked for you and countless others. Theoretically aikido works, but statistically it doesn't hold up in grappling.

Finally, don't hump your female students.

I don't understand step 8 (l guess you'll have to start explaining from 6)

Awesome stuff, thank you!