It first dawned on me how much of an idiot I'd been after training last Monday. About halfway through, Sensei instructed me to help a 3rd kyu with Bassai Dai. According to the 3rd kyu, Bassai Dai was completely new to him and he had not done it before. Many times, I had worked on Bassai Dai with karateka of his grade who knew the kata already but I'd never had to introduce anything, let alone Bassai Dai to anyone.
I'm not sure how coherent my introduction was, I explained what the meaning of Bassai Dai was, then if I remember rightly, the rest was waffle. Some advice to people in my situation: less talking, more karate. Unless you have amazing improvisation skills, you will find your mind blank and feel put on the spot if you attempt a longer verbal introduction like I made the mistake of doing. The chances are, it will come out incoherently and the student will gain nothing from it. That 3rd kyu was there to train, not to listen to some awkward, inexperienced dan grade. I't worth bearing this in mind for any student/s you end up teaching. A better option is to go through whatever you are working on with them and fit in explaining points about bunkai, historical context, etc... around it. It's less pressure from a teaching perspective, it wastes less time and the student/s get/s more out of it. It's also worth remembering that it's each karateka's individual responsibility to practice and research karate so ultimately, their long term progress is out of your hands.
I need to remember to take it slower and not rush when explaining/ correcting things because the 3rd kyu became quite confused on regular occasions and I hold myself responsible because of my hasty explainations. Another reason I found Bassai Dai difficult to teach is because of its length(about twice that of the heian katas). Is it better to go through the whole thing multiple times, and spend less time on each technique, or break it down, about 6 moves at a time, but maybe not get through the whole kata?
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| Kata Bassai Dai |
But the thing I berate myself for the most is, at the point in the kata where 3 shuto-ukes in kokutsu-dachi and one backwards precede a movement that could be interpreted as a wrist lock, I taught the unfortunate 3rd kyu 4 shuto-ukes forward! The only good thing that happened was when I realised my mistake and taught him the correct way, Which was quite embarrassing. My lack of teaching experience got the better of me.
