One of the first concepts I learned about in Instructor’s Training was to be as enthusiastic as you can, as often as you can. The idea behind this is that if you are excited enough about the work that you are doing, then the student is more likely to get into the Kung Fu and really want to try.

The issue is that there are always those people that will not get excited for anything. Or at least, you can never tell if they are. In their minds, they may be ecstatic; however, outwardly, they have the facial expressions of a brick. Then the teacher is going to look like a puppy trying to play fetch with a statue.

People are easily affected by the actions of others, and the same goes for people’s emotions. If another individual you work with is in a positive mood, they tend to affect you positively, causing you to act in a more positive manner, and experience happier thoughts. Unfortunately, the opposite also stands true: if that person is in low spirits, you will adapt those feelings as well. As a teacher, no matter what mood your student is in, it is up to you to bring the cheer and confidence to the lesson every time.

I knew going into this that I would meet or have to teach emotionally-stunted students like this, though I didn’t know that my first student to act this way would be a little five-year-old. This is particularly distressing, since now you have the parents watching your every move, judging the way you interact with their child. Often times, the parents are much more stressful to work with than the student, because as much as you want to appease the pupil, the parents are the ones who have the ultimate decision as to whether or not their child is getting the teaching instruction they deserve.

Once again, I was subbing for another instructor, and once again, the child was afraid of me. It took his mother about 10 minutes to gently shove him onto the mat to work with me, after which she sat down ten feet away, waiting for our now 20 minute lesson to begin. Not a great start.

I tried everything I could think of. I smiled, doled out high fives like they were candy, spoke enthusiastically, and tried to make a game out of the moves we were doing. In other words, I was a caffeinated beverage, and I was trying to energize the little kid before me. Nothing worked. The boy just held an expression that began as timid fear, and by the end, looked more of a stony boredom. Fantastic.

Still, I continued to smile and move around enthusiastically. By the end, I was pretty much out of energy, and the student was still a cinder block. I masked my disappointment with a grin, and finished up the lesson.

Immediately, the boy ran to his mother, hugged her, and started talking about how much fun he just had. I blinked. There was no way that this was the kid I just taught, the little boy who stared blankly at me for the past 20 minutes, and had nearly cried when he found out that he had to work with me. They soon left, the mother thanking me graciously before exiting the studio.

People are absolutely bewildering, but I think it was a good thing that I experienced this early in my teaching career. Not everyone is very good at expressing their thoughts, whether it be through emotions or actions. Still, if I had let this little kid’s attitude affect my teaching, he probably wouldn’t have made it through the lesson at all. I may have looked absolutely ridiculous the entire time, but if it helped him to have a good time while still absorbing the information I gave him, then it was all worth it.

Now, even though I remember this story and I tell myself to learn from it, there are still those moments where I have issues keeping a straight face for 30 minutes. Actually, there was this one lesson that I had to teach for an hour, and that was definitely a test of my mental (and unfortunately, physical) endurance. But this article is about my success rather than the opposite. I’ll talk about that later.