🌴 Since I’m on vacation, here’s a slightly different kind of post.
🥋 From copying techniques to understanding systems
I started training Taekwondo when I was very young, later transitioning into Kickboxing, Muay Thai, MMA and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
In many gyms the learning model is familiar: 🥊 1–2–3… middle kick. Repeat.
This develops coordination and muscle memory, but often you learn what to do without fully understanding why it works.
🧠 That changed when I began training with Nuhi Gashi, my coach when I lived in Kosovo and one of the people from whom I’ve learned the most about sport, martial arts, and life.
With him we didn’t just repeat techniques. We analyzed them.
• Why this angle?
• Why this timing?
• Why this grip creates control?
That simple habit of asking why changed how I learned.
⚙️ When you understand the principle behind a technique, you stop memorizing movements and start understanding the logic of the system.
Which means you can:
✔ Adapt to distance
✔ Adjust to reactions
✔ Apply ideas to new techniques
Interestingly, my current coach in Austin, Frank Benn, teaches in a very similar way.
🌍 This approach pushed me to explore and study martial arts beyond my own training:
🤼 Senegalese Laamb
🇲🇳 Mongolian Bökh
🇲🇲 Burmese Lethwei
And to study fighters differently: posture, guard, angles and footwork.
From GSP, Jon Jones and Demetrious Johnson, to Mayweather’s jab, Tyson’s pivots, Ali’s feet, or Canelo’s precision.
🥋 You also notice how different martial arts solve the same problems.
⚡ Taekwondo stance → faster kicks, less power
🔥 Muay Thai stance → slower kicks, more power
Different systems. Different solutions.
🎓 And this connects strongly with education in the IB. We try to move beyond memorizing answers and focus on:
🧩 Conceptual understanding
⚙ Principle-based learning
🌱 Student agency
Instead of teaching only what to do, we help students understand:
• why it works
• what principle is behind it
• how it transfers to new situations
🌱 In martial arts, repeating techniques creates executors. Understanding principles creates martial artists who can keep evolving.
And in education… 💬 Are we teaching students to repeat, or to understand systems?