personal development I have always had a knack for bossing people around- and still do. As a child, I would tell my cousins what their characters' actions and feelings would be when we played games. Until martial arts, I always felt like this trait was undesirable. I constantly worried that people wouldn't like me because I was bossy. After becoming an instructor, I discovered a way to combine most of my prominent traits; creativity, positive energy, and bossiness (later understood as the ability to lead) and use them for the greater good.
Not only did martial arts give me a place to accentuate my positive qualities, it also built other qualities that have been influential to my current success. A martial arts instructor must be confident, patient, a risk-taker, perseverant, and see the good in everyone and every situation. Martial arts has brought these attributes out in me and have taught me to appreciate who I am. Teaching is not easy. I failed many times. It is in these failures that I learned the most about myself and how to be a role model. Failure should just mean "the next step to success," and not the negative connotation that it carries today. |
community service At the karate dojo our main goal is to positively impact society with every student we send out into the world. The kids we teach will learn how to work with others, respect people no matter their age, work hard at something until they get it, and how to focus on and achieve their goals.
One of the benefits of being a martial arts teacher is watching the kids you taught go out into your community and make it better. Whether they learn to work harder and finally get that A in math class, or they found their own place leading and become their class president; the kids I teach have an impact on the world. We have had every sort of kid come into our program, carrying many types of baggage. Whether they had a negative attitude, a lack of respect for elders, or a terrible work ethic- martial arts teachers like myself work hard with the student's parents to set that child on the path to success. |