Recently, I’ve been thinking about the difference between the relationships I’ve established with my current students and how I previously interacted with my traditional martial arts students.
The biggest difference, of course, is that my current students are adults. In a short period of time, I realized that for me to be successful teaching fitness to adults, I had to step off my high horse and stop talking down to people. I know this sounds extreme, but, in retrospect, this is exactly what I had to do, and I did.
Having grown up in the martial arts and then teaching professionally at an early age, 17, I honestly think it distorted the way I interacted with people. Students called me Mr. Graden in the hallways when I was in high school. Not only does this go to your head when you are so young, but also I think it changed the way I perceived people, and how they perceived me.
Because I started so young, I think I hid behind the discipline that martial arts instruction demands. I can remember doing some of the dumbest things, such as requiring all of my students who didn’t go to a tournament to do fifty knuckle push-ups. No wonder, in the early stages of my martial arts career, I only attracted the hard-nose fighter who was willing to be abused.
Of course, as I grew older and more mature, I grew into my role as a martial arts leader; and I think I did a pretty good job of it. Again, I was primarily working with kids, or the parents of the kids, who were there more to interact with their children than to learn martial arts.
When I started teaching fitness I realized that I couldn’t treat my fitness students the same way I treated my traditional martial arts students. My fitness students don’t want to earn a Black Belt, so the fact that I was a 7th-Degree under Joe Lewis and a world kickboxing champion was unimportant to them.
What really convinced me that I needed to treat these students differently was when I taught a kickboxing class about ten years ago. I gave a female student, who was taking my class, plenty of instruction, explaining, in detail, how she should execute a technique. I thought she was impressed to receive all of this extra instruction from “the Mr. Graden.” I then overheard her talking to another student about how uncomfortable she had been; and she wished I would just let her work out!
That experience really set the tone for me when interacting with my fitness students. I no longer was Mr. Graden. I was now Jim. I gave students as much respect as I expected from them. I honestly started to know them because I no longer hid behind that air of superiority that had been so ingrained in my brain from such an early age.
I do believe that the focus on respect and discipline is very important when interacting with children, especially since they aren’t receiving it anyplace else. I will never forget what my instructor and mentor Joe Lewis said to me, relating to teaching adults. He said, “I pay my taxes, I don’t break the law, don’t tell me how to run my life.” I believe this is how the average adult thinks, and why some martial arts schools have trouble teaching martial arts fitness.
When an adult picks you to help them improve their health, they already have respect for you. If the instructor is unapproachable or is arrogant, then most adults will be attracted to that instructor.
Many adults are willing and able to pay a high price for results from your martial arts fitness program, if they don’t have to deal with an arrogant jerk.
