I had to do fuckin research for that title
There was a point in martial arts training when I started to be the upper belt to my partners more frequently, and for the first time I started to be the one answering questions rather than asking them.
The best lesson I learned from this is that I usually learned more while I was teaching. People would ask me “why do we do X” and even though I basically knew the answer I wouldn’t be able to articulate it, and the quest for that articulation would force me to really think about the answer in ways that I hadn’t before.
Long story short there: I learned that there is always an opportunity to learn, and that I never knew as much as I thought I did. These were so damn useful to me in not being that second kind of person. I wish everyone could have that experience.
It’s a pretty common saying that the best way to learn is to teach, so this anecdote can definitely apply across the board.
- Watch someone do it.
- Then do it.
- Then teach someone else to do it.
