[Reece Nelson]

Hello all,

I've been involved in HEMA for about 5-6 years now and I've gotten to the point were I'm now instructing on my own classes I have a pretty good understanding of the body mechanics and mechanics of the weapons, but I want to learn more. I want to truly understand more of the history behind each master, bring more of their philosophy into my classes and become a better teacher overall. I'm familiar with sites like wiktenauer and I have loads of books on the subject, but they don't seem to really touch much of the philosophy and way of thinking.

From having instructed HEMA now, I've become better myself, due to having to think about it more...but one of the issues I have is that I have to do things a lot differently due to only having one leg. I have to position myself for it the suit me with the prosthesis and having student's with different builds it can get a little frustrating. So I'd like to get better explaining myself and having a better understanding of the masters...

Any advice you can give me? What tools help you for teaching?

Thanks in advance!
-Reece

[Mike O'Hara]

Hi Reece

First - good on you for asking for advice, too often we don't (shamefacedly raises own hand).

It's a bit tricky to find what you are after so I'm going to take a slight sideways step and hope it helps you, relying on others to help with some of the more specific medieval martial arts answers as I am only starting reading those manuals myself. Having said that, George Silver's material we have found invaluable, especially the true times.

Try the following - these are all modern but they do cover both philosophy on teaching and some on why a martial art exists i.e. the philosophy.
1. Meditations on Violence: A comparison of martial arts training and real world violence by Rory Miller. Has some great stuff on realitstic training techniques and excellent stuff on the mental aspect.
2. Martial Arts Teachers on teaching by Carol Wiley. Certainly helped me adjust some of my approaches to eastern martial arts teaching.
3. The Bare Knuckle Boxer's Companion by David Lindholm and Ulf Karlsson. They cover a number of the bare knuckle practitioners and do talk about about how the strikes arose and how to use them and how boxing arose from bare knuckle.

I studied Goju-Ryu with a gent in a wheelchair. He said it made him more deliberate in his technique. He didn't do the 50/50 attacks or defences because he couldn't. He wasn't above using the chair either.

hope this helps
mike

[Ken Speed]

I've never taught any western martial art but I have taught other subjects. Obviously thorough knowledge of your subject matter is of great importance in teaching something. Being able to communicate what you know in an efficient and attention holding manner is also VERY important.

I'd like to recommend a book titled Khrushchev's Shoe written by Roy Underhill. Yes, the Roy Underhill who does the woodworking show with hand tools. He has a degree in theater or communications and is a speaker and consultant on communication issues. The book is a quick easy read and sometimes quite amusing but most importantly it's very informative about informing and holding an audience.

[Reece Nelson]

Thank you both for the replies. I apologize how I had worded my first post...it was done on a smart phone with a tiny screen :P

Above all, I want to not provide my students with false information (me guessing) about what to do with certain techniques, timing, etc. So I'd like to learn as much I can about the history of the art and understand the various masters (probably need to spend more time on wiktenauer) so I know what I'm really talking about

The biggest issue is that of my communication for sure...

I know what looks right (at least in my interpretations) but just having a difficult time explaining it to others. I'd like to start with improving the teaching aspect and then work on studying more of the material. Seems to be the best direction right now.

-Reece