The Tao of Saying Goodbye – Part 2: Tips for Martial Arts Instructors
Last week, I offered tips for martial arts students on saying goodbye respectfully if they decide to quit or take a break from their training. Instructors, on the other side of the equation, have an even greater responsibility for responding well to students leaving. The way I look at it, martial arts instructors are leaders in the community. We should hold ourselves to the highest standards in our personal relationships, even under less-than-ideal circumstances.
Tips for Saying Goodbye as a Martial Arts Instructor
There are no two ways about it; saying goodbye to students is tough, and the longer the student has been with you, the harder it is. While the financial aspect can be a factor, more often than not, it is the personal relationship you’ve developed that makes it hard. Here are some tips for easing the process for both you and your students:
- Make it easy for the student to be up front with you. If you haven’t seen a student on the mats for a few weeks, regardless of whether or not their membership is up for renewal, get in touch with them. They may be sick, or had a car accident, or are going through some sort of personal emergency. They’ll appreciate that you took the time to check in with them to make sure they’re okay. On the other hand, if they have simply lapsed in their training, they might appreciate the encouragement to come back. If the lapse is due to a lack of interest or an intention to quit, it also opens the door for them to be honest with you so you can deal with it openly.
- Address any potential issues. Ask your students if there was anything about the dojo or their training that caused them to lose interest. Most people don’t feel comfortable offering criticism, even if it’s constructive, so you have to do this in a way that assures them that it will be well received. Reassure them that you’re not trying to change their mind, that you just want to know if there is some way that you can improve what you do for other students. If there is an issue you want to address, let them know what steps you’ll take to handle it, just so they know that their comments have helped. And you never know, they may even change their mind if they see your eagerness to improve things.
- Don’t take it personally. Life is short, too short to waste time getting caught up in negative thinking patterns, asking “How could they do this to me?” and other unproductive questions. Even if it’s a student you’ve had for years and they just stop coming and don’t respond to attempts to contact them, it’s better to let it go and give the student the benefit of the doubt. They may be extenuating circumstances that caused them to drop off the way they did. They may have gone through something emotionally difficult or traumatic and don’t feel comfortable talking about it. Or they may have just felt so bad about leaving they just couldn’t bring themselves to tell you openly. Whatever the case, forgive them and wish them well in your mind. And if they come back in the future with an apology or an explanation, you’ll be able to receive them well if you’re not burdened with emotional baggage.
- Be gracious. No matter how sad you are to see a student leave, be ready to smile, shake their hand, and wish them well in their future endeavours. If your student tells you about issues they have with the dojo that caused them to lose interest, listen to them fully and thank them for their feedback, whether you’re going to take action on it or not. You can’t solve every problem, but if you don’t react well to them, you’ll stop hearing about them and will have less opportunities to address them. If a student quits for an outside reason such as family commitments, education, or they just want to take up something new, even if it’s another martial art, wish them well and mean it. As a teacher, you should encourage people to do the things that will make them happy and fulfilled. Isn’t that why we do what we do?
It isn’t easy to say goodbye, but doing it well makes it much more likely that that goodbye isn’t forever. I have a great record of staying in touch with students that trained with us past the initial 3-month starter period. I’ve had a number of students come back after long absences. It’s always great to welcome them back to the mats, like getting back together with an old friend.
Do you have any further suggestions on how martial arts instructors can help ease the process of saying goodbye? Please feel free to share them in the comments. 🙂
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Your view on this subject is more or less my own (albeit from a slightly different perspective): try to learn from the experience (there’s always room for improvement), be courteous (a friendly attitude and good manners are a sign of a cultivated mind) and most of all don’t dwell on it. I especially like this bit: “Life is short, too short to waste time getting caught up in negative thinking patterns”… Rather profound, you’re beginning to sound more and more like a Taoist priest of a Buddhist monk 😉 The sentiment in this article is a testimony to the way you feel about your students. You obviously care and that’s an important quality in a sensei: iIt’s not just physical skill and the ability to transfer it onto others that make a good teacher. To me truly
great instructors in the martial arts should be more than just fountains of knowledge and sources of inspiration to keep at it and to surpass oneself in training: they should be moral guides too, a function that is too often missing in people’s lives and the reason why they so often run astray. This should be accomplished not by abstract teachings or commandments but simply by example which is the way to true learning in the moral sense. It is said that Socrates was admired by his students chiefly because of his high moral conduct and not so much by his teachings which can be deduced by the fact that they all went their seperate ways and developed systems of thought often quite different from their teacher (yet they always retained their respect for him). I believe it’s more or less the same in the martial arts, don’t you?
Yes, absolutely. If a person truly wants to be of service to others they should strive to carry themselves with kindness, integrity and sincerity. Thanks for your thoughts, as always. 🙂
Good points on this subject. It is good to part ways on the positive EVEN if it is the result of something that you have done. Talk about it, LISTEN, and try learn from it so that you can make yourself a better instructor. Not every school is for every student either. You cannot cater to every need out there, so knowing that up front you will understand that some will need to move on.
On the other side, it is difficult when you really put yourself into a student, trying to help them grow and then see them go off in search of something that you know is only going to take them in the wrong direction or slow down their learning process.
Well said and I abide by the same philosophy when it comes to departing students. This is the result of an experience that I had with an instructor of mine who did not react well when I got married and moved to Canada. Our relationship essentially ended after I moved, despite many attempts at outreach to him. Based on this experience, I have decided that I will not do that to departing students. So your post is bang on in this regard.