Blogs Posts on "Teaching Philosophy"

Teach Them to Fight by Combination by Filipino Fighting Secrets on Nov 12, 2009I know, it sounds like a Bruce Lee rip-off. Well it isn’t… completely. See, fighting by combination has been around longer than Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, and it just makes good fighting sense to do it. Maybe his book, Bruce Lee̵...

Mastering the Art of the Chess Match by Filipino Fighting Secrets on Nov 4, 2009I have two approaches to teaching the martial arts that I follow. Most of this blog will deal with the lesser of the two, as I feel that every Master–myself included–should have something he is retaining for his own students. Therefore, t...

What’s In Your Dojo? by Filipino Fighting Secrets on Nov 1, 2009Okey, smarty pants, I know it’s technically NOT a Dojo. But I am using the word generically. So, what’s in your Dojo? I have training equipment, and our set up is a little different than most martial arts schools. First of all, we’r...

Producing Good FMA Instructors, pt V by Filipino Fighting Secrets on Oct 31, 2009This will be a short entry, because I have one small tip that really means a lot and I want it to have its own article. I’ve discovered after 18 years of teaching the arts in my own school, and after over 1,000 students, that the best way to te...

Producing Good FMA Instructors, pt IV by Filipino Fighting Secrets on Oct 25, 2009When I was a young man, I knew only one method of living the martial arts, that of a young martial artist and fighter. Because of my exposure to older masters who still kept their skills up–including many who still fought (like Lemuel Talley, B...

Producing Good FMA Instructors, pt III by Filipino Fighting Secrets on Oct 24, 2009When I first began teaching, I was 15 years old and my Jow Ga Sifu, Master Dean Chin, had just died. Within our Kung Fu school, most of my older brothers were Sifu’s age or older and no one thought in a million years that we would be left with...

Perfection and Mastery in the Martial Arts by Filipino Fighting Secrets on Oct 23, 2009Can one ever actually master or otherwise achieve perfection in the martial arts? Of course the so-called “experts” of the FMAs will answer emphatically, no. I expected that. Why? Because the Filipino martial artist today really has no de...

Producing Good FMA Instructors, pt II by Filipino Fighting Secrets on Oct 23, 2009The premise behind my teaching philosophy is that we are first, trying to build strong fighters and secondly, trying to train new instructors. Underneath that philosophy is a second, more traditional philosophy that we “graduate” new inst...

Training versus Teaching Students by Filipino Fighting Secrets on Oct 19, 2009Original, unedited post from 2006. We will have a more detailed, edited post up soon, but I thought I’d tease everyone with something from the “kuntawman” archives: training vs teaching many FMA people, i noticed, spend a lot of...

Producing Good FMA Instructors by Filipino Fighting Secrets on Oct 16, 2009The business of the FMA has helped the traditional teacher find a way to make a living and grow his art and school, but it has weakened each generation of students as the years go by. But all is not lost! In the past two decades, the Filipino arts ha...