Teaching approaches that make your classes more effective. Part 1
Simple methods from sport science that enhance traditional training
Each year, I come across useful teaching ideas from other disciplines, sometimes by seeking them out, sometimes just by staying observant. Whether it’s a meditation or contact improvisation class, watching how a karate instructor runs a session, or noticing how my tension shifts during a jog through the forest, these moments keep improving how I teach both kids and adults.
This summer, I took a closer look at what professional sports and education research have developed over the last few decades. Their focus has been clear: how to help people learn physical skills faster and retain them longer. These principles work across disciplines because they help any content reach students more effectively.
What this is (and isn't) about
This post isn't about changing the techniques you teach. It's not questioning what you've learned from your instructors or picked up at seminars, schools, or workshops either. Those methods work, and you're likely doing your best with them.
What this is about is a set of universal teaching approaches that can make learning faster, more engaging, and more systematic. It's about finding a better balance between passing on techniques and helping students understand the principles that make them truly effective.
This post focuses on adult training, though we'll explore methods for kids soon too.
What about students who just want simple recreation?
Some practitioners genuinely want to show up, follow along, and enjoy movement without thinking about optimization. These approaches serve that goal well. Clearer session themes mean less confusion and frustration. Engaging warmups feel more like play than work. Student participation makes training more social and enjoyable, not more demanding.
The goal is to make whatever people are seeking (stress relief, movement, social connection) more accessible and satisfying.
The teaching challenge we all recognize
I once trained at a dojo where classes ran one hour, but warmups took 25 minutes. The instructor called them "ki calibration"—long, elaborate routines that felt more ceremonial than functional. At the end, we'd do breathing exercises, leaving maybe 25 minutes for actual technique practice.
My next teacher took the opposite approach: two-minute warmups with traditional stances and brief centering work. Efficient, but it felt more like acknowledging organizational expectations than preparing bodies and minds for training.
Both approaches seemed to prioritize ritual over learning. Most of us have similar patterns—we repeat familiar routines because that's how we learned, even when we sense something could work better.
Four ways to improve your teaching
Approach 1: Share learning objectives beforehand
What we do currently: Students arrive without knowing what to focus on during training.
How to improve: Communicate session themes in advance and rotate through systematic skill development.
Use your group chat to announce each session's focus using clear, practical themes. Here's what I'm using lately (feel free to add missing stuff or omit what's not useful :) Let us know your ideas in the comments.
Foundational principles:
Relaxation: Letting go of unnecessary tension to move with fluidity and power.
Centering: Moving from a stable, grounded core, both physically and mentally, to maintain control.
Balance: The dynamic ability to maintain your own stability while simultaneously disrupting your partner's.
Breath awareness: Using your breath as a tool to calm your mind and link your movements seamlessly.
Connection: Creating a non-resistant physical and energetic link with your partner to read and redirect their force.
Distance management: Consciously controlling the space between you and your partner to create opportunities and maintain safety.
Mental performance factors:
Clear intention: Committing fully to a movement's purpose with focus and decisiveness.
Attention training: Balancing the mind's spotlight with spacious background awareness
Stress management: Remaining calm and composed under pressure, allowing for rational and effective responses.
Body language: Intuitively reading and responding to your partner's nonverbal cues.
Self-reflection: Aanalysing your own performance and reactions to continuously improve.
Research on educational psychology shows that when people know what they're supposed to learn, they notice relevant details more effectively and retain information longer.
Implementation: Rotate through these themes systematically rather than randomly. Students benefit from exploring each area thoroughly before moving on.
Approach 2: Add thematic awareness to existing warmups
What we do currently: Going through familiar routines without connecting them to the day's learning goals.
How to improve: Keep your current warmup sequence, but add focused awareness that previews your session's main concept.
You don't need to redesign everything. Simply guide attention during movements you're already doing. While stretching shoulders, ask students to notice their stability—"Can you maintain your balance while reaching? What happens when you stay grounded through your feet?"
During muscle warming exercises, add relevant cues: "Use your whole body for this movement and stay present, like someone might bump into you and you need to maintain stability throughout."
Send your session focus to students beforehand through your dojo's group chat: "Tomorrow we're exploring how relaxation transforms into stability—during warmup, notice how releasing tension actually creates stronger structure."
This mental preparation engages students before they arrive. Research in motor learning shows that when people understand the purpose behind movements, they learn them faster and apply them more accurately.
Quick example: During any stretching sequence, have students tense their entire body for five seconds, then release. Guide them to notice how physical relaxation allows their posture to naturally settle into better alignment—relaxation creating stability. This same progression appears in every aikido technique.
Approach 3: Make principle-to-life connections explicit
What we do currently: Students practice techniques without understanding how principles apply beyond the dojo.
How to improve: Consistently connect aikido concepts to situations students recognize from daily life.
Every technique contains principles that work in non-martial contexts. Make these connections explicit. "This blending motion works like merging into traffic—you match the flow's speed and direction before changing it." "Staying centered here helps in any situation where you need composure under pressure, like taking a breath before responding to a heated conversation at work or conflict at home."
This mental process of making connections supports both memorization and embodiment. Research in cognitive science demonstrates that information linked to multiple contexts gets stored more robustly and retrieved more easily. When students understand principles across different applications, they don't just remember techniques—they internalize the underlying logic.
Implementation: End each technique explanation with one real-world connection. Students will begin making these connections themselves, deepening their understanding of what they're actually learning.
Approach 4: Involve students in designing practice variations
What we do currently: Students passively receive instruction without contributing ideas.
How to improve: Ask students to suggest modifications and variations during practice.
After demonstrating a basic exercise, ask: "How could we make this more challenging?" or "What would happen if we changed the speed?" Students often suggest modifications that wouldn't occur to you—and they're more invested in trying ideas they helped create.
Why this works: Student ownership increases engagement dramatically. Peer creativity often exceeds instructor expectations because students understand their own learning challenges. This reduces hierarchical dynamics where they don't serve learning, develops teaching skills in everyone, and makes training feel exploratory rather than prescribed.
Implementation: Try this once per class. After showing a basic partner exercise, pause and ask for variation suggestions. Test the best ideas immediately.
Start with one approach this week
Pick one approach to experiment with. Notice what changes in student engagement and understanding. Ask for feedback—students will tell you what's working and suggest improvements you wouldn't think of alone.
Teaching approaches that work across disciplines can enhance traditional knowledge by helping that knowledge reach students more effectively. The goal isn't to abandon what you've learned, but to present it in ways that serve contemporary learners.
What to expect next:
In Part 2, we'll explore: Progressive challenge variables: how to systematically introduce variables so skills transfer to unpredictable situations. Peer coaching systems: training students to help each other improve. Feedback loops: simple techniques for continuous course correction. Self-assessment tools: helping students track their own development.
These approaches transform practice from repetitive drilling into dynamic skill development that students can measure and celebrate.
What teaching innovations have you discovered from other disciplines? Share your experiences in the comments—these insights help all of us understand how to make aikido more accessible.