Black Belt Requirements

Teaching experience is part of the requirements for many of the martial arts here at Indiana University. One of the best and easiest ways to get this sort of experience is through participation in the P498 program.

If you are at all interested or curious about this program, ask some of your fellow participants in the martial arts about P498. Many, if not most, of the upper belts in all of the martial arts offered academically have participated in this program. All of them will tell you that it is both a great experience and a whole lot of fun.

P498 Physical Practicum

P498 is the Teaching Practicum in the Martial Arts Program for students who have completed at least the first year of classes in their martial art (this requirement varies from martial art to martial art - talk to your instructor for specifics). Here, students assist instructors in teaching various martial arts classes and will have many opportunities to teach themselves as well.

But also, this class helps put the students' martial arts knowledge in a whole new perspective. As the old saying goes, 'you don't really know something until you are able to teach it to someone else.' The process of teaching others helps reinforce knowledge the students already have, helps to make certain that the students know proper technique, and helps them to learn 'teaching progressions' or methodologies for teaching various techniques. Also, being a P498 participant is an excellent opportunity to work one on one with some of Indiana University's martial arts instructors.

Participation in the P498 program is easy. Before you register for class, a permission sheet needs to be filled out and signed by the department. Students then submit a list of three classes for which they could be the P498 aide and, by the beginning of the following semester, they are assigned as a P498 aide to one of those classes. Then, the student spends the following semester working closely with the instructor of their assigned class.

Aside from attendance and participation, the only requirement for the P498 program is the keeping of a class journal. In this journal, the student is expected to record the class activities as well any insights into their particular martial art that they may have gained. These journals then serve as a tool to both reinforce the students own martial arts knowledge and provide the foundation for a syllabus should the students find themselves teaching at some time in the future.

If you are interested in participating in the P498 Teaching Practicum, find out more information about it today! Either talk to your instructor or email the Martial Arts Program.

Sample Journal Entry:

Day 8 - 9/22/5 (Beginning hapkido)

Began teaching body movement drill - got through the first 6 movements. Mr. Burns said that this was pretty good. Besides, learning a new body movement drill is complicated and you really need to spend at least a couple class periods on this

Remember - try to face the same way as students when teaching if possible. The reason for this is that the students will try to imitate your movements. If you are facing the students, then your movements are actually a mirror image of what they should be doing and this will confuse them, especially when they are first learning a new technique.

Started with an explanation of why body movement is important and how it will be used. That is, besides being foundational to a lot of self defense we will do, the body mechanics involved apply to many, many differnt situations. Though it isn't always important to communicate this to students, it helps them understand why they do things that don't have obvious self-defense value.

Imaginary opponent - it helps to understand what you are doing (or should be doing) in the body movement drill if you visualize an imaginary opponent directly in front of you. ( there is some disagreement on cross-step-and-turn on whether the opponent is in front of you or behind you.)

Work on drilling 1st 6 moves that we had learned. Practice - that is, reinforcement - is the number one tool of the martial arts.

Mr. Burns said that it is a good idea to save last (Back Spin Back Step) for nest class as it is the most complicated. Besides, the students already have learned a great number of new things today and we don't want to "overload" them.

Drilled for remainder of class. Next class, continue the body movement drill and begin teaching falling

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