My Teaching Philosophy

Learn through doing.  All the talking and thinking and conceptualizing and dreaming has a place.  But no one has ever gotten even remotely good at anything without the direct experience of doing that thing.  

The test comes first.  In everything I teach, the test comes first.  Otherwise how would you know it is worth learning? If you pass the test right off the bat you don't need to learn it.  If you fail the test, in the real world, you know exactly why you want to learn something.  Also if the test comes first, you can keep re-testing yourself until you personally know you know what you know.

Support Mindfulness: Read this article by one of my students who is far more articulate than I am, saying what I wish I had said about the way I teach.  (it's a PDF)

Aggression is Natural, so is Enlightenment:  People show up with all kinds of history, meet them where they are.

Great teaching requires a profound level of trust and mutual consent.  Being explicit about physical and emotional boundaries is always a sign of maturity and responsibility, practice and model it.

First create an emotionally safe place to practice physically dangerous skills.   Then, when the student is ready, create a physically safe place to do emotionally dangerous things.   I took this from martial arts hero Rory Miller.

Fun, Games, and Seriousness:  Appropriate teaching means being inclusive and adaptable by using a wide range of teaching strategies.