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To be a good instructor, you must be able to speak before a class of students. In some schools, this may be a big crowd. Even if you have experience in public speaking, the first time you teach a class, you will be nervous. Given time, you will get over the nervousness, but for the first few classes, it will affect the way you speak and thus the way you teach.

While instructing a class, you are not just speaking, you are assigning drills, watching for mistakes, giving feedback, and analyzing the skills levels of the students and the overall atmosphere of the class so you may choose what the next drill or activity should be. In addition to all this, your instructor is watching and evaluating your performance. All this adds to the stress of having to speak before the class. This topic will discuss ways to ease this stress.

Some key principles to remember when speaking before a class are:

• Being stressed is natural. All the instructors that came before you had to face their first class; they were nervous and they succeeded. You may think you are more nervous than anyone should be, but that is not true. As long as you are able to speak, you will get through the class. Then each subsequent class will be less stressful.

• You do not have to be perfect to succeed. Some instructors seem smart, calming, entertaining, and polished, but you do not have to be brilliant, witty, or perfect to be successful instructor. It all depends on how you, and the class, define "success." The class does not expect perfection. Perfection itself can be boring. The class knows you are inexperienced, so they will be tolerant of mistakes, so be tolerant of your own mistakes, and go with the flow. If the class learns something, gets a workout, and has fun, you will have been a success.

• Pick one or two main points to cover. You do not have to cover every Taekwondo technique in one class. Pick one technique, such as a round kick, and then cover different variations of it. Many studies have shown that people remember very little of the information speakers convey. All your students want from you is to walk away with one or two key points that will make a difference to them.

• Remember the purpose of your class. The purpose of the class is not to show how much you know or to win approval of all the students. The purpose of your class is to teach students something new or to help them improve on something they already know. You cannot please everyone, so do not even try. Do not try to get approval; try to give information. The operative word here is GIVE not GET!

• Be yourself. Many of us have a distorted, exaggerated view of what successful instructors should be and then we strive meet those expectations. In other words, we try to become someone other than ourselves! For most of us, we try to emulate our own instructors. The secret to be yourself and let your personality come through. You may be different than your instructor, but that is fine. Not all successful instructors are alike.

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