Overly Aggressive Students

Hi everyone,

This is my first post and it relates to teaching.

I have a student (who has just been training a few months) and I have recently been introducing him to light contact sparring. He is pretty fiery by nature (he admits this), but once hes in the mix he gets VERY aggressive. This results in him ultimately throwing away the skills he is learning and going back to instinct. Its great for me in terms of dealing with a determined/aggressive oponent but not for when the sparring is supposed to be light.

I was teaching him privately last night and at one point we went to the ground and i could sense that at any moment he was gonna lose it. I ended up having to put a hard submission on him which i followed by explaining to him that losing your rag during training and even more so in a real go is not cool.

What would you guys suggest in terms of how to deal with this guy?

Any tips appreciated!

Chris

Why not give him one thing to work on, like a specific combination, every time he spars? Have someone stand next to him with instructions to step in and stop the round the the moment he does something else. Give him some time to calm down, then go again.

There are a few aggression control drills you cna do. Dennis Martin teaches a few, find out what he has to say, you should find his site if you google the name

Thanks guys

Is he losing the plot completely or is he just overly aggressive?

Nick

Hi Nick,

Well, he starts ok then once hes under a little pressure the wheels start falling off and he becomes progressively more aggressive.

Im sure you being super experienced in these matters that you understand it when i say "i can sense that he is about to lose it" and to be honest i dont like that!

Thing is, im confident i can calm him down when im working with him, its just that i dont want him losing it with other students. He is aware that hes got a bit of a temper, i guess im just gonna have to monitor things.

Cheers,

Chris

If he loses it i.e. breaks down and his technique falls apart I'd make him go back to tons of repetitions and everytime he starts to lose it, stop him, and start over. (Den probably has some cool NLP stuff for this by the way which will correct the problem rapidly)

If he's just aggressive, we used to put them in black karate uniforms. They knew that if two of them faced off in sparring they could be rough if they wanted but they weren't allowed to do that on anyone wearing white.

Nick

You could always make him do press ups or something similar as a form of "punishment" for becoming overly aggressive.

From what you've said, over time he would become pretty good at doing press ups....and may learn to control himself as a result.....or you could just KO him to teach him a lesson......that last one was a joke......or was it?

does this fella get into much trouble outside the Dojo?

Ego issues maybe?

Thanks for all of the replies guys.

He knows that he has a bit of a temper and we have discussed it in the past.

I think all i can do is to perhaps stop sparring (whether im sparring him or one of the other students) with him as soon as it looks like hes losing his rag and then reset and start again.

Will keep you posted.

All the best,

Chris

Leave him as he is, probably the nearest close thing the other more normal students are going to get to reality ! if that's what you teach.

There is probably something else going on in his life or something that has happened to him that triggers this behaviour.
He wants to hurt people because hes hurt inside.
Giving him a physical punishment or correction will only breed resentment.
They did it in the 80's to kids with behaviour problems in residential schools, it dont work.
Talk to him get to know him get his trust then when he respects you he will be ready to learn from you.