When we were growing up in the martial arts, the tradition was from mouth to ear, application, participation, blood, sweat, tears, and often times felt like giving up. Two to three hours training and the teacher standing in front of us barking orders as if they we were in the military; their reasoning was to make our character strong and build our
confidence. You definitely had to know how to defend yourself, or you were subjected to be either bullied or jumped by a few kids. As you got older, those few kids grew into teenagers then adults, then gangs. Your attention and awareness were paramount to your survival. If caught sleeping, that might be one mistake you might not recover from. Since the Covid-19, teachers have become innovative and began teaching virtually. One thing for sure, no screaming, no hitting the student because they didn’t block, kick, or stand correctly. How can you teach self-defense without a partner? Very challenging for sure. You definitely can’t learn how to flip someone without one, partner are essential.
The positive thing about virtual classes is it has motivated instructors to come up with new methods in how to instruct, and invent new games which can instruct and motivate simultaneously. Corrections are the most challenging and execution of the technique from the opposite side to give the students a mirroring effect. It's not so easy because most instructors are used to performing their forms on one side.
This remind me of when a visually impaired person came to class. At first, I thought, he was at the wrong place. I told him this was a tai chi class. He responded, he knows and wanted to learn. I was not expecting that response and I never trained anyone who was blind. The point being, my description of the moves had to be accurate enough for him to grasp. That’s when I understood the importance of verbal and visual communication. The virtual zoom classes are challenging our verbal commands to be precise, a little extra detailed, and vigil. Our smart phones, and iPad screens are so small and you can’t see all the students logged in to observe if they doing it right. hopefully can get back to teaching but with newer skills on how to teach