Martial Arts Instruction, by Lawrence A. Kane

o you need the short summary? Really? Ok, here goes: Buy this book! Now! It has received raving reviews other places, fully deserved as I see it. It is nothing less than a brilliant book that the author, Lawrence A. Kane has written here.

Kane is an experienced teacher and martial arts instructor, and from what I can understand he has to be very good at it too. Ok, I may be blinded, but here I doubt it very much! Not only does this book cover some really advanced features and educational principles of teaching, but it is done in a way that makes it comprehensable and "do-able" to us less educated people. No small feat in itself!

He is explaining the Myer-Briggs model used to determine personality traits (or "types") based on the studies done by Carl Jung. These are in regular use by many psychologists, educators and others to analyse, register and understand human behaviour in the context of learning, motivation, needs, team-building, communication etc. Furthermore Kane brings us information about the senses, and how we take in and store information. It is really refreshing to see how he manages to clearify how we use sight, sound and feel (kinestetic sense) to learn martial art, and how this may be very different from one person to the next. The author also have some great, practical advice on how to build and maintain a positive learning environment.

Kane manages to blend practical advice and examples, with theory, research and anecdotes into a very interesting and educational mixture. Stuff like this can be very boring, but not here! I dare say that you must be one heck of an experienced and knowledgable teacher if Kane has little or nothing to teach you! Personally I've been doing this for over 25 years almost every day, and I have picked up lots of major and minor things from this book.

Having a background in karate-do it is only natural that Kane have some of the examples taken from this art. Still, it is all based on principles. Whether you teach kung fu, judo or kickboxing, the same principles on communication, motivation, learning and teaching apply... I'll repeat myself: This is a winner, get this book today! You may go to Amazon, using the link to your left. I can almost guarantee you that you will become better and more focused as a teacher.

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