“Mentorship is like friendship: it evolves over time, and it’s a two-way street.” – Simon Sinek
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Mentorship is an activity in which we engage in to help develop the next generation of karate teachers, style or group leaders. What exactly is mentorship? What makes it effective? How does it differ from just teaching or instructing?
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The word “mentor” comes from the character Mentor in Homer’s Odyssey. When Odysseus, king of Ithaca, went off to fight in the Trojan War, he asked his trusted friend Mentor to advise and teach his son, Telemachus. In time, the term mentor came to refer to someone who is a guide and educator, and a mentoring relationship was seen as a relationship between a teacher and student.
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Mentorship is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn. A mentor is someone who always has time for you.
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Within the martial arts, the word mentor is something that doesn’t crop up very often. Mostly the more knowledgeable person is referred to as a teacher, an instructor or a sensei.
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Recently someone commented on one of my posts. He said; “my sensei wouldn’t say that.”!!….
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What prompted this person to make this comment?……Perhaps he was being mentored. Spending 24/7 with his teacher. Living in his home… Perhaps an ‘Uchi-deshi’ (live in student). But did he really know every word that his sensei had ever spoken?…..Of course not.
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This was not the first time I had heard this, and it leaves me wondering that these individuals must have such fragile egos, if they believe that ‘THEIR’ sensei cannot possibly utter a word unless it goes through them (the senior instructor) first.
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It doesn’t matter who you are, or how long you have been the ‘favored’ student, you will NEVER know everything your sensei has said.
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In 1971 Bruce Lee wrote; “A teacher, a really good sensei, is never a giver of ‘truth’; he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that the student must discover for himself.”
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In my opinion, it doesn’t matter how long you have studied with a teacher, even if you are the only student, there will be a time when ‘YOUR’ sensei will have said something to someone, you may not have heard before, (particularly if it is translated from Japanese)…… Now, did your sensei neglect to tell you that one thing because he chose not to, or because he didn’t think it was important at the time? I’m pretty sure it’s the latter….. It’s just simple common sense…… So remember, whoever you are…there is always something more to hear and to learn. For EVERYONE…??
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