Show Transcript
Andrew Adams (00:01.646)
Welcome, you are listening, we're watching to Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. And today I am joined not by Jeremy, which has been something coming up recently, but you know, Jeremy's becoming incredibly busy. I've been incredibly busy, spent hard to get stuff together. And so today I'm joined by huge friend of the show and often, I mean, you've been on so much, Craig, we can almost call you a co-host at this point.
Craig Wharem (00:28.358)
Almost. I'm the third wheel of this tricycle.
Andrew Adams (00:32.858)
The wobbly one. So we're going to get into a bunch of stuff here, but I just want to make sure to remind everybody that Whistlekick Marshall Arts Radio is where you can go to find all of our episodes. They're all completely free. We don't put any of our episodes behind a paywall. If you wish to get more stuff, you can join our Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N slash Whistlekick.
Craig Wharem (00:34.226)
That's right, yeah, that's me.
Andrew Adams (00:59.406)
where you can get some behind the scenes stuff. There are some extra bonus episodes that you can get. And if you want to purchase something that Whistlekick does, we do events. We host a weekend long seminar in April. Plus you can buy sparring gear and dragon hoodies of which I'm wearing one right now. Craig, I see you've got a Whistlekick shirt on there too.
Craig Wharem (01:23.3)
I'm rocking the shield hoodie today.
Andrew Adams (01:25.43)
Nice, nice. And at least for a limited time, I'm not sure how long it'll be available, you can go and purchase your exclusive Kathy Long three color dragon hoodie, which is pretty amazing. It actually has her signature in the hood. And all of the profits from that particular hoodie will be donated to charity from now till the end of the year. So we're certainly excited to be partnering with Kathy Long on that. But today,
Craig Wharem (01:54.201)
So cool.
Andrew Adams (01:54.734)
Craig, you and I, we're here to talk about how to be a helpful student. So we both teach in schools, and we have all heard and probably have our own stories of quote, little Johnny or whoever like causes problems or does this or does that. And we all have those stories. But let's talk today about
I don't want to say the good students because that's the wrong word for it, but the students that have helped out in class and how we as instructors or people running our schools could be better served by having students doing XYZ or what would make our lives easier.
Craig Wharem (02:44.314)
Yeah, I think, and it's a two-fold thing, because the other thing that's interesting, as I'm thinking, at Marshall Summit, we had our team training. That was filled with instructors for the core team. And we all were, we all, and it was interesting, because that's where we get to kind of kick around martial arts ideas and how to be a helpful student. It's important for that, because there, you needed to remember you weren't the teacher, you were the student. So it can go either which way, I think, which is pretty cool.
I'm big. I've talked about it a bunch of times. If you've ever attended a MADC session, you've heard me talk about it. Culture in your school is important and it gets created whether you want to focus on it or not. Either which way it's going to happen. Having helpful students along the way can really foster a healthy dynamic in your school if you encourage it properly. Right?
Andrew Adams (03:39.119)
Mm. Yeah.
Craig Wharem (03:42.31)
Andrew, you and I, I think, are kind of known to be goofy once in a while. If you were at free training day Northeast and heard the gong, that was pretty cool. Um, you know, and, and sometimes we, we interpret helpful students as the ones who bring energy up, they're the funny ones or the domineering personalities, but they're not always the most helpful.
Andrew Adams (03:45.682)
Really? No. Alright, maybe a little bit.
Andrew Adams (03:56.502)
That was great.
Andrew Adams (04:12.198)
Yep
Craig Wharem (04:13.838)
Right? So it's a fine line, I think, as an instructor to temper the helpfulness and the enthusiasm along with the productivity.
Andrew Adams (04:25.138)
Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. I am a goofy person by nature. I tell people often that I'm a mushroom because I'm a fun guy. But there is a time and a place for that. And I recognize that. And it has taken me a long time to figure out when the time and places for that is. And I don't always get it right. But in a classroom setting and I'm going to consider
teaching a martial art class as being a classroom. I use the word classroom though it's not a typical classroom. But in a classroom setting, whether it's a martial arts school or sitting in a math class, is not necessarily the time and place to make lots of cut up jokes and things like that as a student. As an instructor, as a presenter, there are times where it is and is not okay in class.
But you wouldn't want your hour long martial art class to be 45 minutes of you going through your standup routine, right? And I think sometimes when I was younger for sure, I didn't get that. It was all about, for lack of a, I mean, it was all about me, but it was all about making people laugh and because that made me feel good. But that, as you mentioned, can be very disruptive to.
Craig Wharem (05:49.85)
Yeah, and so I think the first thing we should do is kind of like what qualities or traits are helpful. Like what does make a helpful student for us anyway. I think it's a good landing point because then at least, you know, we're talking off the same platform. So for me, a helpful student is one who is able to come alongside a classmate and help them improve either in their confidence or their physical skill. That's how I would define it for me.
Andrew Adams (06:16.906)
Yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, I think you would say that's one aspect. I mean, there's going to be a bunch. Um, I think it's someone who can also read the room and be able to determine what, what they could see to help out. Um, something as simple as, uh, you know, at the end of class, uh, I'm, you know, shaking hands with students or whatever. And, and a student notices a parent come in that clearly needs to talk to me.
but I haven't noticed, you know, like recognizing, oh, you know, Sensei, there's somebody here to see you or someone that's new, maybe it's not even a parent. Maybe it's a stranger they don't know, but clearly they're here to see me. So I think both being able to recognize how they can help students and work alongside other students, I think being helpful in the school in general would be something that's important too.
Craig Wharem (07:12.762)
Yeah, I think so. One of the things that was ingrained in me a long time ago when I was first training was, you know, if you're in the last class of the night, you're trying to get to the mop first. You want to take care of your space, right? You want to clean that whatever it is, whether it's a space you're renting or a space that the school owns, whatever, it's you want to be able to be respectful of that space, that facility and that in and of itself is helpful.
you know, is it getting clean to the standard that we necessarily want? Maybe not, but it's a good start, you know, and it's a, it's beneficial for everyone. It helped, you know, as a teenager, you know, I could go and clean the mats of my school, but then not go home and clean my room didn't make sense. It taught me, you know, it taught me responsibility in that way.
Andrew Adams (07:45.142)
Yeah, yeah. Good.
Andrew Adams (08:02.634)
Yeah, absolutely. And in our school, we currently now use the space in another facility. And so we don't do as much cleaning after class as we used to when we had our own dedicated space. But we had, at the end of every class, what in Japanese and Okinawan culture would be called sojito, which literally translates, I believe, as mindful cleaning.
And it was an opportunity for every student to do some cleaning, whether it was, like you said, mob the mats, dust pictures that are on the wall, sweep up the entryway, sweep up outside so the outside of the school looks really good. Like all of these things help keep the school clean. And, you know, our philosophy in our school is that, you know, it's mindful cleaning. So there's not a ton of talking and fooling around while that's happening.
You are using that time to really think about, what did we work on today in class? What did we learn? What did I take away from it? Do I have any questions? Now the class is over, and I'm thinking about what we worked on. Do I have any questions for Sensei after class that I can ask him when I'm done with my cleaning or whatever? But rushing to get to the mop, or I'm gonna do mopping today, or I'm gonna do the dusting or whatever. Those sorts of things help.
you to take ownership of your space. Could we, could I hire, could you hire a cleaning crew to come in and clean your facility? Absolutely you could. Could some people look at that and be like, that's bull. Like you're getting free labor and you know, you shouldn't use your students that way. Okay, yeah, you could look at it that way. And I will admit, I used to think of it that way when I was younger. I was like, man, I can't believe I have to clean the school. Like, you know, I pay money to be here.
But now that I'm an instructor, and even when I wasn't actually, because this started at the school I'm at currently, when I wasn't an instructor, I was just a student. But I saw that it did allow me to take ownership of the school, and I took pride in it because it was mine. And I know we took kind of a little tangent side track here on this one particular thing, but, you know, that is an example of someone that you could do, that you could.
Andrew Adams (10:21.73)
Choose to be helpful at. You see something that needs to get done in the school, you know, do it. Say, hey, can I do this?
Craig Wharem (10:30.298)
I heard a story once, and I don't remember if it's true or not, just a legend about Fumio Demura. He would have a test when somebody wanted to come train with him. He'd crumple up a piece of paper, throw it on the floor before they got there. And then one of three things would happen. They'd pick it up and throw it away. They'd walk by it, or they'd pick it up, throw it away, and then let him know that they throw it away. And if they did...
Andrew Adams (10:45.198)
interesting.
Craig Wharem (10:59.566)
If they walked by it and just disregarded it, looked at it and kept walking, he didn't want to train with them because they weren't going to be helpful to the environment of the school. And then if they walked by it and they told him, oh, Sensei Master, I threw this away, I took care of it for you, he said he cautioned them right after about seeking praise all the time. And so it's interesting. Again, I don't know if it's true or not, but that story, I heard it.
Andrew Adams (11:07.988)
Interesting.
Andrew Adams (11:23.246)
Hmm.
Craig Wharem (11:29.21)
15 years ago, it stuck with me, you know, in my head of just do things to do things and be helpful. I know as an instructor, one of the best, one of the most helpful things that for me is having students who are just excited to talk to other people that aren't in their class. Right. You know, because we talk all the time, a higher rank, at least in my school, and I'm sure other schools are similar.
Andrew Adams (11:31.17)
Hmm. That's it.
Yeah.
Andrew Adams (11:48.459)
Mmm.
Craig Wharem (11:58.646)
You know, you are in a brown belt and the instructor says, well now you need to make sure that you're a role model to the lower belts in the school. They want to, they're looking up to you. They want to get to that level. And then all they do is they see the brown belts bow onto the mat, train, bow off the mat, put their shoes on and leave. They never interact with them. That, you know, that can create a barrier as opposed to the brown belts talking to everyone. You know, just saying hi, checking in.
Andrew Adams (12:07.211)
Hmm.
Andrew Adams (12:17.085)
Yeah, yeah.
Craig Wharem (12:26.434)
if somebody looks like they're having a bad day, which this has happened. One of my adult students saw one of the middle schoolers crying in the shoe room and said, what's wrong, are you okay? And the middle schooler talked to the adult student for a minute, you know, and just at the end, they both came and got me and we handled the problem, but it was good in that moment that there was a culture at which the adult student felt like they could help the younger student and the younger student.
Andrew Adams (12:36.148)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Adams (12:53.006)
Sure.
Craig Wharem (12:54.846)
you know, felt comfortable enough that they were to receive the help from, in this case, a higher ranking person anyway. Um, you know, and to me, to me, that's the most helpful part because I can't be everywhere at the same time. You know, right.
Andrew Adams (13:02.657)
Yeah.
Andrew Adams (13:11.978)
No, I mean, as much as we want to be, we can't. And the scenario I mentioned at the very beginning, that's the one that comes up for me probably the most often is I am in the middle of doing something and someone comes in, especially in our last facility where we had kind of two rooms. Now the space that we're in, it would be difficult for someone to come in and not have myself or the instructors notice it. But in our last facility, there were two rooms. And so...
You it is conceivable that you could have come in the door quietly and you know Just kind of sat down and we might not have been able to see you Um, and so having you know, we multiple times the students say hey sensei I'm not sure if you saw somebody came in. Oh, you know because they were you know, maybe I was in the bathroom or whatever And so those sorts of things helping the school out And you know, the other thing I wanted to chat about is being ambassadors for the school Like how can you be a helpful student?
Craig Wharem (13:59.589)
Right.
Andrew Adams (14:10.226)
Um, you know, I'm a high school student and I hear from one of my friends that I want, they want to train. Oh, Hey, you know what? Come to come check out a class, you know, like that is being helpful as well. Um, because that helps the culture of the school helps the school grow. Um, and it's great to, it's great to train with friends, you know,
Craig Wharem (14:37.198)
Yeah, and to that point too, I think being an ambassador of the school by carrying yourself in a certain way. You know, if you're wearing, you know, your school's logo or like for us, when we're wearing, if you make a comment, we're both wearing whistle kick things and we go out and we start picking fights with every martial artist, that's not congruent into what we're working for. Same thing in your school, you know, you have a responsibility.
Andrew Adams (14:44.119)
Okay.
Andrew Adams (15:01.454)
Sure.
Craig Wharem (15:07.634)
and an important way to be helpful is just carrying yourself in a way that aligns with the lessons of the school. That doesn't mean you can't make a mistake. Everyone's human, makes mistakes, but you want to really try to align with the values that are being talked about in classes.
Andrew Adams (15:22.986)
Yeah, absolutely. The other thing as an instructor that would be helpful that I would love is the students that go home and actually work on stuff. That's helpful too. I make a joke with my students that you don't have to practice every day. And I use it for my music students and my martial arts students. And especially in music, it's really ingrained in students like
You've got to practice every day. You've got to do it every day for like an hour and a half every day if you want to get good. And I'm not a fan of that. I actually think that's harmful, to be honest. But I tell my students, you don't have to practice every day. You only have to practice on the days that you eat.
And then they say, but I eat every day. And I said, well, that's your problem. You have to figure that out. If you don't wanna practice tomorrow, you don't have to, but you can't have breakfast, you can't have lunch, and you can't have dinner. But at three o'clock when you're jonesing for a granola bar and you take that bite, you've gotta practice. Now, obviously, I'm kidding, right? Obviously, should a student practice every day? Yeah, in a perfect world, that would be great.
Craig Wharem (16:34.619)
Right, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Adams (16:41.43)
But I do not subscribe to the philosophy that you should practice for an hour and a half every day. I think as a student, you will get so burnt out so quickly that it will become unfun. And I tell my students, practice for 10 minutes. Practice for five minutes in the morning before you go to school. Practice for 10 minutes when you get home from school at the end of the day. Just those things alone will make a huge difference.
Craig Wharem (16:57.115)
Yes.
Craig Wharem (17:10.322)
Absolutely. I mean, it's just like coming to any class prepared You know if you think about it, and I did the math that was some of my friends once you know we talked about Being frustrated sometimes you know why aren't they progressing as quick as I want them to and that sort of thing And it's like well You have to put in perspective if a student comes to class twice a week and say it's a 45 minute class They're doing an hour and a half a week That's that's not that much time every month or every year that they're really able to put into it
outside of practice. And one of the best things that I've found is when I impart that to certain students who really I know practice a little bit, they actually use that same point to the younger students, equipping them to be helpful in a way by saying, look,
you know like you said five minutes in the morning five minutes a night that's ten minutes it shouldn't take you more than ten minutes to run through whatever you did in the last class as a quick review
Andrew Adams (18:09.642)
Yeah. And that would be very helpful for me as the person teaching material, because it will help make sure that you, it will help you to understand what's going on, you know, and that you will, the fact that you're going through your stuff will make you a better student just inherently, you know.
Craig Wharem (18:33.478)
uh... martial arts the more you put into it the more you get out of it exactly what you put into it right
Andrew Adams (18:39.522)
Absolutely. So do you do we have any stories of interest or fun or interesting things that students have done to be helpful in the past? I mean you mentioned one earlier of the adult and the middle school kid.
Craig Wharem (18:54.894)
Yeah, yep.
I mean, you know me, I have stories for every situation, right? So one story that pops in my head right away that I think illustrates this in a way is that a student I had was being bullied pretty bad at school and other classmates heard about it. And so they had a choice. They could confront the bully, right? And put to...
Andrew Adams (19:17.548)
Mm-hmm.
Craig Wharem (19:28.014)
potentially have a violent issue, right, where the bully decides to hit somebody or whatever. Or they could find a way to recognize the root of the problem, because the root of the problem a lot of times in bullying is people begin to feel isolated and alone and unworthy of time, right? That's a common feeling. So I had known about the bullying thing, but I watched as this group of kids kind of organically, led by one.
just kind of took that other kid under their wing. And they were a couple grades ahead in high school, and that kid ended up becoming best friends with them. And so in a not specific to martial arts class way, but in a martial arts community and representative of the school, they found a way to help stem the problem that the school was handling with the bullying, but also address the emotional need of a classmate that they didn't really know that well.
Andrew Adams (20:21.926)
Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah. I have the thing that happens the most often in our school and, you know, we, we teach our classes, you've seen the gym that we teach our classes in. Um, and there, there's a side door that we use to come in for class. And so that when you first walk in, there's a little landing, you know, by 10 foot by, you know, 15 foot, and then you can go down some stairs, you can go up some stairs and, or you can turn and go into the gym.
And the kids class is happening before the adult class. And so adults will typically show up early and they'll go downstairs and they'll change and they'll come back up and they'll wait out in that kind of air, airlock area that, you know, landing before coming into the gym. And the number of times that I see students helping each other doing kata in this really small space, but you know, other students helping other students out like, Hey, can we run through
you know, Shiho or I'm going through my blocks and I can't remember the like, I remember the first five and I can't remember six, seven and eight. Like, can you help me with that? And so that happening organically outside of class and air quotes because it's not in class. They're just outside while the kids class is going on. Like those sorts of things help to foster a good culture, but that's incredibly helpful because that, you know, if my higher ranked students and I'm not talking
The black belts are doing it, although they do that as well. But, you know, I'll have no problem looking out there and seeing a green belt, helping a white belt out, you know, like I'm okay with that. So just, you know, if you know something and can help someone else understand what it is they're trying to learn, that's great.
Craig Wharem (22:10.318)
Yeah, I think that's awesome. And that speaks volumes to this culture you guys have that the green belts feel comfortable enough to help out and participate the way they do. I think one of the things we talk about Matic is don't punish someone for behavior you're trying to expect. So if you expect someone to be helpful, right? And you expect them to kind of look out for each other.
and the minute that a student starts trying to coach, even if it's not the best coaching or one of the nuances may be wrong, don't pull the kid aside and tell them you're wrong, don't do that, or the adult, whomever, because what ends up happening is they're gonna stop being helpful. Instead, you can say, oh wow, I really appreciate you took the time to step up and help with that, that was awesome.
Cassie, do that real quick. And then you correct the nuance on them. And then you say, you know what, don't worry about it. You helped them today. We'll address this. But you correct the coaching nuance because either the person didn't understand the technique and they were doing it wrong, or they didn't understand how to explain the technique. But either way, it's a teachable moment for you to help the helpful person and give them that empowering moment to continue to do so.
Andrew Adams (23:11.342)
Hmm. Yeah.
Andrew Adams (23:32.183)
Absolutely.
Andrew Adams (23:36.862)
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, I think we've definitely given stuff for people to think about. Are there, I'm curious people watching or listening, if you have other things or tips or tricks or other helpful things you expect your students to do or that they do do. Let us know. Comment on, you know, if you're watching on YouTube, make a comment there. We have a page, martial arts radio on Facebook that you can go that this gets posted in.
You can always shoot me an email, andrewatwhistlekick.com. Craig, if you want to throw your email or I can send it to you if I get anything.
Craig Wharem (24:15.838)
Anyone can add me on Facebook, Craig Wehrman, message me there. I'm happy to do that. That's easier for me most of the time than email.
Andrew Adams (24:21.718)
Perfect, perfect. But is there anything we're missing?
Craig Wharem (24:27.43)
Not that I can think of off the top of my head. I think we kind of hit it. Be a good representative of the school, take ownership of your space, help empower others, communicate, and take the initiative of your own training. I think that that's all a good starting point.
Andrew Adams (24:45.774)
Absolutely, absolutely. So if you have any other thing for us, you know, let us know. There's a ton of ways you can get in touch with us. If you want to message Jeremy or get Jeremy, you can get him at jeremy at whistlekick.com. I already mentioned I'm at andrewwhistlekick.com. Or if you have a topic idea for an episode, this today's episode was actually a topic suggestion.
from Chris Rickard in our team whistle kick group here. He said, you guys should do an episode on that. And I was like, that's a great idea. So if you have a suggestion for a topic, let us know. Or if you have a question for one of our rapid fire trivia, rapid fire questions for Jeremy, you can do that as well. But I think we're gonna call it quits there. So until next time.
Craig Wharem (25:38.578)
Train hard.
Andrew Adams (25:40.167)
Smile.
Craig Wharem (25:41.722)
and have a great day.
