The Skill of Teaching /// By: Josh Botkin

One of the most natural progressions for most Jiu-Jitsu practitioners is being put into the teacher/instructor roll. Train long enough and you will find yourself the most experienced guy in the room at one time or another. If you're a Purple belt and you get partnered up with a soon-to-be blue belt, there is a good chance you know more than them and if a road block comes up they are going to assume you might know the solution and might even attempt to ask you a question (it's fine... if they are new enough you can just make up an answer and even if it doesn’t make sense they will just act like what you just mumbled is a profound statement).

If you're a brown or black belt, you can easily find yourself the highest ranking guy at an open mat or the first guy in line to be asked to cover a class when the coach decides he/she needs a night to catch up on Game of Thrones… All you did is show up and train, now it’s your responsibility to lead everyone who bows in to that picture of Grand Master Helio and then 45 minutes of shrimping drills. Follow that up with some stagnant drilling then have the guys bow out to Helio so you can call it a day.

Or let's not forget about the time you decided it might be fun to help the next generation of grapplers along and volunteered to help coach the kids’ classes. Coaching that “Lil Monkeys” class seemed like a good idea until you had to wrestle a half dozen 6-year-olds who are charged up off Mountain Dew Code Red and got dropped off by their parents who won’t return to get them until the gym is about to close. You couldn’t wear shorts for two weeks because of the bite marks on your ankles….

For ¼ scale humans with minimal training, they are a violent bunch. You have no idea how to restore order to this sugar-high group of misfits and their only attempt at teamwork comes when they are plotting your demise. Your skills mean nothing to them, collectively they are like a Terminator; they cannot be reasoned with, they don’t feel pity or remorse. And they absolutely will not stop!!! It doesn’t matter how high on the podium you get or how good your guard passes are or even how good your Jiu-Jitsu blog is (yeah, I know your last entry almost got 36 views), you’ve seen others command this kindergarten-swarming collection of giggles, but you quickly learn it has nothing to do with arm bars or your fancy guard play.

You can advance in rank without advancing your ability to teach or coach a class. We could probably spend a bunch of time trying to sound smart by separating the differences between what a coach and what a teacher is. Unique skills are needed to answer a question after rolling with someone, to fill in and teach a class, to tame the savage fearlessness of the children or to be someone’s head coach, and those skills don't necessarily come from reps or rolls or being able to choke someone out.

No, you can’t teach Jiu-Jitsu unless you’ve practiced it. You’re not gonna stick around at a gym long if the head instructor just looks up YouTube moves and then tries to spit them back at you without hours of practice behind it. Part of teaching a technique is letting the recipients of your information know what you learned when you were adopting it, hopefully saving them time and a headache when trying to integrate it themselves. But aside from refined technical knowledge, what makes a good teacher is the way they can package that information. A good teacher knows that too much information may not always help, they know how to give details, how to describe and relay things in an easy to understand and digestible format. They can take command of the class and speak with confidence.

When you’re teaching can you connect the tangible move to a concept and strategy that can be adjusted from student to student? Its one thing to be able to describe a sunset to someone but its much different to help them understand what they are actually seeing when the big bright orange things sinks back into the ocean.

So to everyone who wants to teach you should ask yourself, “Am I doing anything to actually improve my skills as a teacher? Do people still read books, and if they do, should I read a book on effective teaching? Does YouTube have any helpful entries on how to be a better public speaker or are all their videos just berimbolos and Copa Podio highlights? Should I start to document a curriculum or just continue to spout off randomness and something I thought I seen Eddie Bravo do?”

The best instructors in Jiu-Jitsu right now are people who are taking the time to be better teachers; breaking down the basics of communication and applying them to the classes they lead. When you go to Marcello Garcia’s gym in NYC, his World Championships and ADCC titles don’t teach any classes. The classes there are good because the refined techniques are delivered by someone who knows teaching demands its own practice.

Between backflips and moving his arms around all weird, Ido Portal says that in life we are all teachers. The more we do, the more we teach. The longer we are on the mats the more we end up teaching regardless if we are doing an incredible or terrible job. One incentive to teach better is that the better we teach and pass on information now, the faster everyone will get better and overall the quality of Jiu-Jitsu can improve. If nothing else, learning how to command the attention of a class might keep you from losing yet another battle to those 6-year olds.

Josh Botkin is a black belt and head coach of Eastside Grappling in Portland, Oregon.