Question A:
The first question I will answer is:
When we practise a martial art, sometimes things go really well and sometimes they don’t go well at all. How do you encourage someone when things aren’t going so well?
First of all I will explain how it feels like when something is going well and when something is not going well at all.
What it feels like when something’s going well?
I have confidence and knowledge in me because I know what I am doing and from training for the past five and a half years, this boosts up my confidence. Whereas as a beginner I don’t yet know what I am meant to be like. To summarize something can only improve after a good amount of training.
When something’s going well I feel happy and on top of the world. I feel excited and eager to carry on and achieve more goals. Personally it makes me think positive and helps me to believe in myself that I can achieve the best. When this happens in a competition it makes me think that I can do this and that I will come home with a medal in my hands.
What it feels like when something’s not going well?
When something’s not going well I feel dark, gloomy and miserable and that I would never succeed in anything. I feel like giving up and not wanting to bother or carry on. It makes me have negative thoughts. It makes me stressed and I want to get ready to give up. In a competition this makes me feel embarrassed and wanting to run away.
My conclusion from what I’ve said is that you should never think negative, you should never run away.
How can I encourage others?
In karate the way I would encourage others would be to tell them what exactly is wrong about the way they did a particular move or sequence and why it didn’t work out the way that they expected it to come out as. After I have given them some advice I will get them to use my tips by making them do it again. If they still can’t do it right the next time I will get them to do it at home, and then maybe next time they would have improved. As well as that I will show them how to do it myself for improving. In addition I’ll tell them to relax, stay calm and not to worry. So instead of putting themself under pressure they could be focusing, because panicking will only make it worse. Instead of worrying they should think positive. Then finally I would ask them why they thought it went wrong for their honest opinion so they know what to look out for when eventually they coach and assess others in the future.
If they can do that I will give them more advanced targets to practise so they can achieve and get better in their martial arts, because if something is easy they could be working harder to achieve more.
Before a competition Sensei Lindsey quoted this:
‘Back to that feeling of pacing, palm sweating, wanting to run away now, nerves before I compete every time I question why do I do this?!
For me it’s about being afraid of something and not backing down, not walking away and making excuses. It’s about showing juniors that I coach and that it is OK to face a challenge, and win or lose you achieve because you got up there and said I can’
This tells me if they try to quit, I’d tell them that it is OK to face a challenge. No matter how hard it is you will learn ways to improve by seeing how higher belts fight. In this case anything is possible if you don’t give up, because a real martial arts student would say” I can!”
My answer to her question ‘why does she do it’ is to represent the club and prove herself as a high grade because she thinks positive and knows she can do it. I would go to competitions to prove myself to the club and improve myself for the club.
I have interviewed several people on this question and this is what they said:
Jess Muller (karate black belt):
I would change the moves around so they can do things step by step and once they can do that I’d do more moves based on that particular move so one day you could come back and have another try and hopefully they would’ve improved.
Emily Nicholls (karate student):
I would ask them what they feel is the barrier is it the move (the physical elements) if so would they like to see the move again, practise it, understand a little more how to do the basic asking them at each stage if they feel that they could break it down to learn, if they are saying it from a confidence point of view (more mental block) then It is important to remain positive or even go back over a few steps to gain confidence and then try again.
Miss Joliffe (our teacher giving a school point of view):
I would just ask them questions based around what they were stuck on until they get it.
To conclude the main thing that sticks out is breaking it up and coming back after you have practised to show you are confident and can achieve things. The same sort of questions appear in and out of karate.