Choosing A Martial Arts Instructor and Club

Taking the the time to find the right instructor and school at the start will pay off in the long term.

Once you have narrowed it down to a few styles that would suit your ‘why’ and your fitness levels, use the following ideas to locate a good instructor and club.

Qualifications

A martial arts instructor should be qualified to teach their art.

Some arts have a recognised national or international body that instructors need to register with. This is the case with most traditional styles such as Judo, Karate, Taekwondo and Kendo.

Passion

Look for an instructor who is very passionate about their art and teaching, not someone who has set up a club solely to generate money. These sort of instructors usually don’t teach the class themselves, but often have ‘junior’ instructors teaching the classes.

Inspirational

A good martial arts instructor should inspire you as a martial artist.

They should demonstrate exceptional skills in their style and be able to teach these skills to their students. Thus, you will also be able to predict how good an instructor is by the skill level of their students.

Flexible

A good instructor understands that each student is different. They must understand that students will have a different skill levels, fitness levels and learning abilities and be able to accommodate for this.

A good martial arts instructor also understands that each student is doing martial arts for a different reason. Some students will take the martial arts very seriously and others are doing it purely as a recreational hobby.

Ask questions

Probably the best way to find out if a martial arts instructor is any good is to talk to their students.

Find out how long they have been training. A club that has been running for a long time but lacks senior students is a sure sign that something is not right.

Find out if the students feel that they are constantly learning and growing as a martial artist.

If the student has been training for a while, do they seem knowledgeable and skillful?

When you are talking to them, do you get a feeling that they respect the instructor as a person?

Choosing a martial arts club

Probably just as important as the instructor, is the other members of the club with which you will be training with. There should be a level of respect for all members the club, not just the senior students.

Learning is enhanced in an environment where students are helping each other improve rather than where everyone is out to prove how good they are.

Martial arts clubs where senior students are constantly trying to prove their position by ‘punishing’ newer students will not be good for your progress. These kinds of clubs should be avoided.

You will only get a good feel for a club after a few training sessions there. Fortunately, most good martial arts clubs will allow newcomers to have 1 or 2 complimentary classes to trial the club and the instructor.

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