Is my martial arts school doing things right?

Question

They always make me fight higher belts. They teach me a new move every time I go there with out making sure i know the move they taught me last time and they teach me advanced moves sometimes when it is my early 3rd week

Answer 1

it is great that your school keeps on teaching you new moves, but someone should check out your old moves that you have learned.

What you can do is when ever you are in class, show a higher level students, or teacher your old moves that you have learned and ask them if you are doing them correctly and what can you do to improve them technically.

I believe that once you know how to do it correctly, you need to train and practice that technique 1000 times before you can use it effectively in sparring. After 1000 times, you body becomes natural with that technique. You can do the technique 50 times a day, and it will be ready to use in 20 days. During practice, you must have a mentality to make your techniques, better, more fluent, faster, more power, gets your whole body involve, it must be better than yesterday.

Answer 2

"It's better to practice one move five hundred times than five hundred moves one time each" or something..

It's cliche, but very true. Your school doesn't sound like it has a solid game plan. And if they're not even making sure you know what you did last week, you have to ask if they even really care about what kind of a fighter you're becoming, or if they're just trying to keep you interested so you keep paying them.

I've been at my school for a while and I'm still doing the same things I did on my first day. Am I learning more advanced techniques as well? Absolutely. They build off of the foundation they built up with me for the first few months and help me to UNDERSTAND what I'm doing, rather than just teaching me a bunch of fancy tricks.

It sounds like you're dissatisfied at your current school. If I were you, I'd check out some other schools in the area. But if you still kind of want to stay where you are, just take a look at the higher belts. They'll give you an idea of how you will develop as a fighter. If you're alright with being like one of them, maybe the school has some master plan that works out in the end.

Answer 3

It sounds like it is a belt mill. If they also hold promotions often and most get promoted at every promotion then you have unfortunately joined a McDojo.  It is not how much you know that is important. It is how well you understand and can do what you know that is important.

Answer 4

I would ask you a couple of questions for clarification. When you spar with the upper belts, do they just dominate you, or do they actually try to teach you something? At our school the higher ranks spar just a little above the lower ranks level, to push them a little but not to beat up on them. I let good solid techniques through a lot of times that I could block, partly as a confidence builder, and partly to let them know that what they are learning will work. I do not ever let a sloppy technique throuhg though. If your upper belts totally dominate you, then you really can't learn because you will be afraid.

How often do you practice the basics in class? At any level they should have you practice those every class in a good school. Do they do this as well as teaching more advanced motion? If they do chances are that your instructor does not expect you to get these techniques right away, if at all, however he has to teach stuff that will challenge all ranks. This is how we do things in our school to an extent. We will do some basic self defense motion, then a little more advanced, because we do not seperate the beginers and the advanced students. This way the beginers tend to get paired up with somebody that knows what they are doing, and can help teach them correctly. Many times we have the upper ranks break off and work one on one with the lower ranks. Not only does this benefit the lower rank, the upper rank has to be concious of how they are doing it so they show it right. I learn far more from teaching then anything else.

It's only been three weeks, so give it a little more of a chance.

Answer 5

go elsewhere or save your money

Answer 6

find another school.

Answer 7

What martial art is it? Jiu Jitsu? Karate? I do Jii Jitsu and ive spared with black belts when I was a white belt. Going with higher belts is great. I always learn the most going with high belts because everything they do is correct. You should ask your teacher why he does this and tell him your concerns. Its a privilege to train with high belts even if us low belts get beat alot by them. Be strait with your teacher and just ask him to mix it up a bit. I also get taught new moves every time and im still learning the day one moves. Stay after class and drill the moves more if needed. You probably won't know the moves completely till your a black belt. Stick with it im still trying to get day one moves and ive been training for a year. I didn't have a basic understanding till about 3 months. Your teacher is just trying to put you with the guys that can help the most.

Answer 8

Sounds fine to me.

They would not be teaching you the advanced moves if they didn't think you could handle it. If it is too hard, and you have tried it, then take it down a notch.  You are going to learn everything a couple times because it takes so many years to go through everything.

Also if you have only been going for 3 weeks then everyone is higher than you. Learn from it and enjoy.

Answer 9

Are you taking classes schedule for upper level students?

If the school your attending has beginners or intermediate classes, you should make an effort to attend those classes.

Each school has it's own way of teaching, so there is no wrong or right way, it's up to you to decide, if this is right for you?

Just research others school, if you can't handle this level of teaching, many schools offer trial classes for free, it's better than complaining about it.

Goodluck!

Answer 10

This is why I like the "Belt Ranking System"  and the "time between belt ranking tests" policies of good martial arts schools.  I understand that many arts seek to teach different curriculums under their own structure and what works best for their instructors, but I really do feel very strongly about a solid "belt ranking system".  An instructor's job is never done when it comes to even the smallest details of technique and to be assured that every student is properly developing technique as well as slowly working up his speed while executing such technique as well.  The list goes on and on, but without a "belt ranking system" there isn't really a way of tracking a student's progress is there?  I mean what do you do take notes on each student and keep them filed away on disk or something?  Knowing that management resources like http://www.martialartsorganizer.com/ are out there for instructors to utilize and help keep things tidy at the dojo I also feel that there's a way bigger human element to it than this as well though.  What did we do before computers right?  Puhaps a lot of these students could be falling between the cracks? so to speak I guess that all depends on the size of the dojo it self.  You can couples a decent "belt ranking system" with decent dojo management software as well and I rather see that than not.  I'd say be patient and take a wait and see approach about your school dude.  It could be just the way they teach and there's always a method to a good teacher's madness in the long run.  You're only three weeks into it and it's a lifestyle man, and I'm pretty sure your teachers know what they're doing....most do....You'll see the way it works when you go to test for the next belt up and you'll be glad when that day is past I'm sure.  Never judge a really good book by it's cover man....It's a lifestyle and and a life time's full of work ahead of you....Good Luck!!