Description
This book is an analysis of the Martial Arts by a serious scientist and teacher. Nick Walker (Ph.D. MPhil. Dr.Ed. (AU) BA (Hons) (OU) BSc. (Hons) (OU) BSc.Ed (Hons) (Exon) NASM 6th Dan Karate AMA 1st Dan Jiu Jitsu) has been teaching Karate for over thirty years and is the founder and Chief Instructor of Kernow Karate the most successful independent martial arts organisation in the world. He is also a High School teacher and University Professor and is highly qualified in science. He has a degree from The National Academy of Sports Medicine in California and is a licensed fitness coach, a registered weight training instructor and a insured personal trainer. Nick makes his living by writing bestselling novels and now, despairing of all the pseudo nonsense that pervades the martial arts, all the old wives’ tales and nonsense science that damage the sport, Nick has finally responded by writing this non-fiction book so that other instructors who are genuinely interested in the science of the martial arts can bring themselves up to date…to become a Kernow Karate instructor you have to know all that is in this book! Nick takes all the basics and applies basic science to them: the stances, do they work? The Warm Up, is it necessary? What does it do? How to make your kicks and punches more powerful. How to break, how to do the Three Inch Punch, how to stretch. Does breathing matter? How does shouting effect the blow? He then goes on to explore how to improve martial arts moves: how to make your kicks and punches faster. How to make them harder. How to anticipate when an opponent is going to hit you and where. Proper scientific training techniques that the Olympic athletes all use. In the last third of the book Nick discusses the teaching of sport, the techniques and strategies that professional teachers have spent four years of university learning and he shows how most instructors are wasting the majority of their lesson time. He attempts to bring our most researched skill (education) into the martial arts: what is the attention span of an eight year old boy? What is the attention span of an eight year old girl? How best to teach a move…show it? Talk about it? Do it? Read about it? The answers will surprise and probably horrify those of you who are not professional teachers. He shows how to discipline, how to dominate a class without getting them to hate you, how mere body language can freeze an entire room. How to keep the members interested and the kids coming. And lastly, he shows you the dangers of teaching sport: how certain moves can injure a child but not an adult. Long term damage of the body. How to recognise certain illnesses and how to cope with them. How to protect yourself from inappropriate allegations. A serious book, written in a very light hearted, easy to read manner…an essential aid to anyone who wants to become a good instructor.
