Imagine being in class. You just read the chapter. You have your notes open on the computer, ready to learn more about the Canadian legal system! Then the professor starts talking and you understand nothing. All the cases he is mentioning as being “from the textbook”? You recognize none of them. Maybe you just missed them? You pull up the course syllabus after a few minutes to double check that you read the right pages. Open your email to see if you missed anything about moving around the topics. Nothing. You are ten minutes into class and no one else has said anything.
Ironically, I wrote that intro in the same class that it happened in. So much for taking notes… blog post on procrastination to come? We shall see. Something Jon has been trying to shove into the heads of all us little Krav students is to question authority. This is something I have noticed others and myself being reluctant to do. In the same class a few weeks prior, the professor was talking about a legal case that I had pulled up beside my notes. He was explaining the facts of the case and why it was relevant to what we were studying, however, his version of the case was different from the one I was reading. So I had this internal debate with myself about whether I bring this up or say nothing. I end up saying something, he looks up the case, and thanks me for the correction. Before speaking up I was convinced that, although I had the source document literally in front of me, I was wrong simply because I wasn’t the expert.
Then recently, Petra had (and passed) her blue belt test! Due to it running into class time, I was told to run two mini-Defence classes during two of her written tests. As I have not been to a Defence class in months, let alone taught one, they were pretty shaky. First class, I straight up forgot about stretching. I may have also forgotten to tell them to grab water throughout the class, I don’t remember. Then during the second class, I skipped one of the techniques, and had to go back to it at the end. Later I was questioning the people who had been in the class as to why they didn’t say anything and was told they figured I was purposely skipping the stretching and got shrugs about the water.
Hold up, class is over now. Gotta go catch a bus. ✌️
As someone who eventually is going to be teaching classes alone, without supervision one day (hopefully), this kinda concerns me. I don’t want people to just believe me when I say something, or not question what we are doing simply because I’m teaching or a higher rank. Obviously, don’t be a dick and question everything. But if you think something is wrong, bring it up. Even if you are wrong, you’ll just be told so and get clarification on why you are. I’m not going to judge you for being wrong, cause I’ve also brought up things I thought were wrong before only to find I was actually misunderstanding something.
So back to that class. I was considering showing my seat mate the outline and asking if we were learning the right chapter, but didn’t want to disrupt the class. So I took a deep breath in, put up my hand, and nervously asked about what chapter we were supposed to be studying this week, as I think I may have studied the wrong one. The professor asked if we were not supposed to be on the current topic, to which someone IMMEDIATELY said “no, we should be on THIS one.” We sorted it out rather quickly then, with other people jumping in, and the professor asked why the hell we let him talk for ten minutes, and then loaded up the correct slides. The student who jumped in after me fervently thanked me. This whole event was the perfect example of what Jon complains about all the time, with people being afraid of questioning people in authority. Clearly other people in the class knew something was wrong, but no one was willing to say anything on the slim chance they were wrong and the only one who was confused. I’m kinda sad I did say something, because I’m interested in what would have happened if I didn’t; I believe we would have gone through the wrong topic for a lot longer.
Also, to anyone not wanting to write a post, first of all you do have time. I wrote this in a two hour time span during a class and on the bus. I don’t bother editing because I know Jon will do it or get someone to. Plus, you can literally write on anything as long as you can vaguely relate it to Krav. While I’m writing this I have six posts published, and four more ideas that might become posts. Perhaps half of them are actually about just Krav and my experiences at UTKM, and the others I bullshitted my way into relating them to some Krav principle; so, ya know, shoot your shot. Also, situational awareness, I thought I missed my stop cause I was typing. I didn’t! But I COULD have. See? Still learning, regardless of rank.
Written by: Karis M. – UTKM Green Belt
For training online visit www.utkmu.com. If you are in the Metro Vancouver area, come learn with us in person, sign up at www.urbantacticskm.com