This post follows right on from my previous one so I reccomend you read that one first. In my previous post, I said I'd be talking about where the approach to one to one teaching I described wasn't practically possible, or where it would still be practically possible even if it dosen't seem it when one first considers it;sometimes it's just a matter of being aware of other things apart from that particular aspect of the way one teaches instead of just classing it as impractical in that given situation,I think.
The first situation where my approach could be impractical is that the student is a quiet individual and answers any questions with few words. Here, I do speak from a small amount of experience; once, I was helping a red belt about 9 or 10 years of age with his kata, who was very quiet. Initially, I got the feeling that my approach wasn't working so well. This was based on the fact that my questions seemed to discomfort him and even now, I'm not entirely certain how to fully prevent that kind of thing and still find out from the student what to work on with them. Although I can minimize it through accepting the answer I get and not forcing a more detailed one(There's a difference between this and asking them politelyt to be more specific about something if neccasarry ) out of respect for the student both as a karateka and as a person alongside not asking the questions in an imposing manner.
Like I mentioned in my previous post, asking the student about their training instead of just telling them what to do all the time also means the student feels taken respected as a karateka and there's no reason why quiet people shouldn't be taken seriously as karateka. Even if they answer questions with few words this is not a sign of incompetence because they might think about their training in a lot of depth and just not want to talk about it to a great length.
Another situation where it could be impractical is if the student is a total beginner. I've yet to discover if this is true or not as I've never taught a total beginner. Ovbiously, they don't have training experience to discuss, so you can't exactly ask them how their training is going in the same way you could to a green belt! Also, they won't be able to say in as much detail what they find difficult about various techniques, but equally, they aren't training in that level of detail; as a karateka gains more experience in terms of executing technques, they tend to notice the smaller details. As previously mentioned, I have no experience teaching beginners so I'll be intersted to find out if my approach is practical in that context and how I might need to adapt it.
This approach definitely dosen't work when teaching a large group;it requires a different set of techniques, I will write about this in more detail in my next post.
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