For a while, if a student asked me a question I didn’t know the answer to, I’d get really self conscious. I began to question my martial arts knowledge, and would start to think that all my years of training suddenly didn’t matter and I wasn’t fit to teach. It wasn’t until I became a higher rank that I learned that it’s okay to not know all the answers, and then when I became a more experienced instructor, I learned it’s okay to tell people you don’t know the answer.
When I was originally going through the ranks, it seemed like not only the masters, but also all the black belts had answers to any question I could think of. They were at a level of experience I couldn’t comprehend, and for a long time I thought that was an expectation for all black belts: to know every application for each move in the forms, to make all our self-defense techniques work in any situation, and to win every sparring match. I pretty much held myself to any and all unrealistic standards if I wanted to become a black belt. This led to a lot of imposter syndrome surrounding my skills, which in turn made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be a black belt, even after I earned it.
Read David’s Article on Imposter Syndrome here!
Eventually, I realized not everybody knows everything; even the Master instructors I grew up learning from admit this. It just seemed like they did because I was so new, but basically I had the same questions that frequently get asked by any beginner. Even training as a black belt, I realized it’s not the fact that they know everything, they just have more experience: Experience to know which skills work better for short people (like me!), and which techniques must be modified to work for my body size; Experience to know how to utilize footwork and rhythm in sparring to score points and find openings instead of just throwing as many kicks as possible at the opponent; Experience to know there are hundreds of applications for any move in any form! I gained some of this experience to become more comfortable in my skills and eventually, comfortable in my teaching abilities.
I have found I’m able to answer almost every question that a beginner or intermediate student has now. I’m proud of this, but still don’t know everything. I’ll get stumped every once in a while by a question, if it’s something that’s up to interpretation, I give them any relevant information I can think of, as well as the disclaimer that everyone does it a little differently. If I truly don’t know, instead of feeling inadequate or defensive because I don’t know the answer, I’ll just say “hmmm, I’m not sure, but I will find out!” and try to find the answer for the next class.
