Tae Kwon Do Tutors | A Martial Arts Blog

So, you’ve read some of the articles on what a good instructor is. Anyone who has been in taekwondo long enough knows that not every instructor is amazing. Now you want to know: what is a bad instructor? How do you know? Here are the 5 most harmful flaws I’ve seen in martial arts instructors!No one likes having a mean teacher!

Hubris

In my experience, it’s pretty easy for an instructor to believe they’re “all that.” Typically, instructors have years of training experience, numerous awards, and get frequent praise. It’s all too easy to let that get to one’s head. You should’nt let that happen! No one wants to learn from a teacher who keeps talking about how great they are. What can be helpful is quite the opposite. A good teacher, in my experience, often praises their students success. When it comes to being a teacher, I find that there is pride in students’ success. It’s reasonable to be proud that they learned something from their instructor. It becomes harmful when it gets to an instructor’s head.

Bullying

Bullies. Are. The. Worst. All they do is mock and pick on others. It feels terrible and is wrong. Aninstructor who is a bully is uncommon (in my experience), but terrible when it happens. What kind of amoral jerk becomes an instructor anyway? No one should have to deal with an instructor who picks on them. That’s just wrong. Besides, we’ve all had teachers who seemed to have a vendetta against us. Why should we go from school to Tae Kwon Do and have to deal with a bully?

Anger

Sometimes teaching is a stressful and overwhelming job, and you just want to scream into a pillow. It happens to us all. But no instructor should regularly get angry with their students. That’s not just unprofessional, it’s wrong. An angry and aggressive teacher should not be a teacher. Teaching is about patience and kindness. Plus, on the commercial perspective, who would want to do business with an angry person? No one I know of! I don’t think it matters how qualified you are, if you’re not a patient teacher, people might not want to learn from you.

Dishonesty

No one likes a liar. Even a nice liar. No competent instructor is going to lie to you. If they have something negative to say, they will most likely give it to you with positive feedback as well. A good instructor will always tell you the truth, typically very nicely. Besides, it’s not helpful to tell a student they had an amazing kick when they didn’t. People are smart, and they often know when their teacher is lying to them. Besides, What is their examiner going to do when they test? Mark them negatively for it probably.

Materialism

Look, at the end of the day martial arts is a business. That doesn’t mean the instructor should be all about the money and the sales though! You’re paying them to teach, so that’s what they should be doing. Being all about product and profit doesn’t just sound scummy. It is scummy. While one can’t teach if they don’t have the ability to keep the dojang’s lights on, they also shouldn’t sacrifice their integrity. Integrity is important to being a good martial artist anyway. It’s also, in my experience, short sighted to lie or swindle. People aren’t stupid. In my experience people are able to figure out whether someone is disingenuous. Eventually. 

So there you go! These are the five bad things an instructor can be. At least in my experience. Do you have any bad experiences with instructors? Message me if you want to tell me!

Disclaimer: This blog post is intended solely for entertainment, and any resemblance to other entities, whether personal or business, is purely coincidental.