By Jane Nielsen, Member until 2014

It is 9.40 a.m. Saturday 29/9-12 and I am on my way to Greve. Must participate in Instructor Course 2. It is with a certain kind of nervousness that I leave, and to be completely honest, it is not one of my favorite courses. Probably because, on these kinds of courses, you are challenged more mentally than physically. Here you cannot learn how to act in the syllabus. And right now I think maybe I don't have the mental capacity to be challenged. But then again, this is where you really learn something about yourself and your limits.

I arrive in good time, so I sit quietly and talk to one of the others, who is also in good time. Talks a bit about the first course, and then the upcoming test we have to go through after the practical exercises.

We are called in, there are 8 of us who will participate. We go straight and hard, everyone knows from the first course what it's all about. 2 are selected to be the first to get a case, where they will be instructors and the rest of us will be students. While the 2 briefly prepare, we have others assigned different roles. There are i.a. one who is drunk, one who is very provocative, one who flirts with the instructor, two teenage girls who clap cake and sing, a father who corrects his son constantly, and the very critical student. Everyone just had to give it gas and play the roles to the limit. And then Søren Renshi and Martin Renshi (instructors on the course) added additional challenges during the courses.

I was now a bit happy that it wasn't me who had to start, but the ride came to me quickly. I was supposed to be with Asger. We tried to make a plan for how we would approach it. Not because we saw how difficult it was for the others to keep their composure and overview, because everyone was so good at playing their assigned roles. But we did have a plan, and so it started. To begin with, it went ok, we had a fair amount of control over the students, I used my voice to create authority. But quite quickly the students began to live out their roles, and then the discipline took a huge turn. Both Asger and I quickly had problems with overview and teamwork. Unbelievable how you can be pressured in a fictional situation, you know what is happening is not a play, but still you feel the pressure and the pulse rises. You feel the frustration and a touch of powerlessness when you are faced with a group that just doesn't want to do as you say, constantly questioning what you say/do, and when you are then further confronted with a provocative and aggressive person who just cannot speak to reason, neither one way nor the other, smokes the last remnant of overview and authority.

Afterwards, we had to have constructive criticism from the team and teachers. It was instructive, especially something that Søren Renshi said, I noticed in "when something doesn't work anymore, go back to where it worked" it especially made sense. What was probably the most borderline-crossing for me was when I had to flirt with the director, who in this case was Daniel, a 12-14-year-old boy, I just turned 40, it wasn't easy...

I have taught for many years, including at my work and as a girls' soccer coach for many years, but have never been exposed to such unruly students. But the unruly students helped to remind me how important it is to continue to work on yourself in unfamiliar situations.

After an hour of role-playing, we had to move on to the theory and the test. Actually, it was nice with all the theory about Shindenkan and the background of the karate system we follow. Naturally, we can read part of it in the syllabus, but it seems to sink in more when it is reviewed in this way, with someone standing and narrating from the overheads. In particular, it was exciting to hear about the history of SST (Soke Sensei Tonegawa) and Kimu Sensei. Two very interesting personalities. So it was just a matter of taking notes, and preferably of the right ones, so that you were ready for the test. A test of 20 questions, 14 of which had to be answered correctly to pass. I mean I left the room somewhat nervous, and with my pulse pounding in my chest. Thought something about when you would be released from your nervousness, with a "passed" or "failed". But Martin Renshi (my chief instructor) sent a text quite quickly "passed with 18 correct out of 20, Great!!" phew ha then I could safely drive home. However, just with a little extra task in the "bag". So thanks to Søren Renshi and Martin Renshi for the task, to write an article a day, and for the free choice, and to learn that you never have to be the last to leave the room 🙂
Thanks for a good course 🙂