So much of martial arts seems to be proscribed. The instructor tells you how to stand, how to sit, how to punch, how to ask questions... the list goes on.

After all this precise instruction and correction, how well is a student able to cope with some freedom? Can the students do a technique on their own, without the teacher barking orders at them? Can the students combine the moves they've been taught and make up their own combinations? These are all great questions I'm still looking at in both myself and my students.

For today I tried to provide the students with very structured sections of class, sections where they had to motivate themselves and finally sections where they had to make stuff up. For the structured sections, I used basics. For the self motivating sections, I had them do their forms on their own. For the creative section, I had them make up their own combinations.

My initial thoughts are, if the students have been presented with all these things in the past, they will have no problem. But if these are new ideas and they're mostly used to a very structured class, why then they'll struggle with it.

The lesson for me as a teacher then is that students need to be exposed to different levels of control so that they'll be able to cope in a very disciplined enviroment as well as in an undisciplined one. A simple idea but one I have to remind myself of.

- Wally.