I love teaching

I love teaching.

I was really blown away in class tonight.

I had an old tough karate guy, an 8th dan judoka, and 4th dan judoka, a 2nd dan Bujinkan student, and a ex-army scout/sniper-now corporate security training in my class tonight. The caliber of work was extremely high level and creative. I am honored beyond belief to have a group of such awesome individuals to play with and foolishly they let me shape the game.

All of these martial artists are skillful beyond me in their specialties. Despite my shortcomings, my ability to run a group shined tonight. I turned on all these varied artists on to novel problems and methods of solving them. I am not so vain to think I can or need to teach these artists technique. But using the Socratic Method the right questions lead the group to their own conclusions.

Tonight's class made me realize that I am now teaching beyond style. The background of all the artists was completely irrelevant. They all could bring all their skills to the table. I am not trying to make anyone practice my style. I am helping all of them refine THEIR style into whatever they want it to be.

I love the martial arts. But now maybe - even deeper than that, I love the art of teaching.