If you are not going to be worthy of the belt that you wear around your waist;
If you are going to just slop your way through every technique and kata, the way you've done, day after week, after month, after year;
If you really just don't want to be in class, and you're soooo bored that you can't even bother to act like you give a damn;
STAY HOME!!! QUIT!!! Don't let the door hit ya' where the good Lord split ya'! GET OUT!!!
You drag the entire class down, provide a crap example of what a higher belt-holder is supposed to be, and you make our whole class look bad.
GET OUT!!!
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Come on Frank, tell us how you really feel. LOL :)
ReplyDeleteI'm fortunate that all of the higher ranking karateka in my school are really committed and enthusiastic. There are a couple of kids in the mixed class who clearly don't want to be there though so I do wonder why bother.
xMx
Hahahaha.... Sorry. It's just frustrating. It's really beyond me why certain people pay their fees every month, and train in a warrior art, and have obviously put in the time and effort it takes to reach the higher belt levels, and then can't be bothered to put out even a minimum of effort.
ReplyDeleteOn a better note, last night, one of our blue belts was promoted to brown belt. I was really happy for her, because she's one of the people who shows up and trains their heart out. She had her belt test last Saturday. :-)
Unfortunately, we are losing her, another of our really dedicated brown belts, and one of our black belts, because the autumn semester is starting soon, for American universities.
It seems like we lose the good ones, and the turds just seem to multiply. *sigh*
Hi Frank. I know how an unmotivated student affects me as a teacher. I don't think I realized how much it affects the other students. Thinking about it from all perspectives (instructor, student and unmotivated student)it is not easy for any of the people involved.
ReplyDeleteWell, I can only imagine how awful it must be, as an instructor, to have one (or God forbid: MORE than one!) of these slugs in your class. The way I see it, I'm only in class for four hours a week, if I don't count the Saturday freestyle class. For a lousy two hour class, why NOT show up and just train your heart out? Why not just give it 100%? What is there to lose?
ReplyDeleteMaybe in school, it's just not "cool" to be earnest and study hard, but what passes for "cool" in school, just isn't cutting it in the dojo. In the dojo, what's "cool," is throwing oneself wholeheartedly into the techniques, kata, drills, and calisthenics.
If I can do it at the age of 41, then these guys that are less than HALF my age can certainly do the same! And if I were the instructor, (which I'm glad I'm not, BTW), I would be having a heart-to-heart talk with these people and finding out what's going on with them.
If it's a home situation, or they aren't getting enough sleep, or whatever... If it can be remedied, so much the better, and they would know that I'm seeing their lack of effort and lack of motivation. Maybe this type of compassionate approach would be enough to spark the fires, but if not, and if it's just a case of being bored or too "cool" to put forth the effort, then I would (with compassion), see about helping them leave, find a different dojo, or whatever they needed/wanted.
Not every student responds to a certain style, and not every student responds well to the same teacher, and maybe students just get burned-out or their parents are forcing them to be there...
It galls me that one of our slugs is a brown belt and outranks one of our other brown belts who trains his heart out. It just doesn't seem very fair, at all. (And yes, I realize that the fair is where people go to step in monkey crap and eat cotton candy, but still... It seems like a profound injustice.)