Teaching and learning

The other day I have a person approach me and wanted me to teach him the tricks of self-defense. As he put it himself. Like it just was a question of learning a killer movement he could use anytime.

It's not the first time people have asked me to learn them or their children or better half to learn self defense. It could be soooo nice - they might need it one day. What happens is a typical "dance" of words back and forth about what they should learn and how much time they are to spend and so on.

But really gets to me, is that people want to" teached". They don't want to learn, but be taught. They say "teach me", and wait to taught. The expectations that showing them the ropes will automatically give them the skills to defend themselves, besides the fact that movement can't by the majority of people be master by just watching. The other part of teaching is the passiveness or argumentativeness approach that many times are shown by these "teach me students". Non of which give learning a possibility, because learning is the responsibility of the person that wants to learn. You can't learn if you are not motivated to it.

Motivation can be made by the teacher, opening up the student to learning. But the students that really learn into the core, are those that are motivated by themselves. They will suck it all up and give it a try, no matter if its fun or boring. They will endure hard training and push themselves. They will in the end own their own experiences from their own motivations, and in such be part of that person for the rest of their life. And since were talking self-defense; this kind will go much further than "teach me" students.

In a sense, and not always knowing it, the self motivated student takes responsibility of learning, or you could say that the person is self driven from their own needs, and will get the teaching to fit.

So teaching is something the teacher does, while the student learns.The teach can only open up to options and possibilities that enhance the possibility for the student to learn. But the learning process itself is souly the students "job".