The Quiet Ways We Sabotage Our Clubs

The Standard You Walk Past Is The Standard You Accept

Let me paint you a familiar picture. Brian, our enthusiastic-but-perpetually-scrambling club sempai, charges into the dojo five minutes late, chucks his shoes sideways, and mumbles something about traffic. Again. He’s flustered because students are already lined up, and the warm-up becomes a chaotic game of copy-the-front-row. 

Posture? Half of them look like they’re bracing for a typhoon. 

Breathing? More like survival panting.

And yet, strangely, no one seems surprised. Why? Because that’s the habit. That’s the norm we’ve allowed to take root.

Coaching as Kata

Take kata. This isn’t just choreography. It’s muscle-etched philosophy. Done right, it imprints something beyond technique: timing, intention, presence. For me, coaching habits work the same way. They’re the invisible kata of our dojo pedagogy. Every choice we make: when we start, how we speak, what we overlook...all this becomes part of that pattern.

Start a session with clarity and composure, and students learn that attention matters. Rush through the warm-up like it’s just logistics, and they’ll likely treat the rest of training the same way. But we’re not just warming bodies. We’re priming minds.

And the sneaky thing about habits? They accumulate quietly. They build from the ground up, slowly setting the tone until one day, you're wondering why your dojo feels slightly...off. Like a shinai that looks fine from a distance but splinters the moment you pick it up. Small fractures, hidden until it's too late.

The Habit Behind the Help

We all carry habits. Some sharpen us, others quietly dull the blade. For instance, I used to think more feedback was always better. Every men-uchi got a comment: “Lift your left hand. Step sooner. Don’t breathe like that.” Turns out, I wasn’t helping. I was training students to wait for my approval instead of learning to reflect on their own.

Then I changed this habit. I started asking, “What did you notice?” before jumping in with what I noticed.

The result? They started noticing. 

Their own timing. Their own choices. They began talking about seme and openings with clarity I hadn’t seen before. It was like handing them a pair of glasses and watching their keiko come into focus. Tiny change. Massive ripple.

This kind of reflection doesn’t just help students grow, it’s the type of habit that keeps us from going stale as coaches. Because let’s be honest, coaching habits aren’t just drills and debriefs. They’re emotional, protective, sometimes even performative. Maybe you avoid peer feedback because deep down, you think you should already have it all figured out. Maybe you cling to old methods like a tanuki to his sake bottle. (If you don’t know the symbolism of the tanuki’s anatomical charm, I’ll let Google ruin your day.)

If we let those habits ossify, we’re no better than the coach who thinks bruises equal progress. During a conversation with Dr. Joe Hall on growth mindset, he reminded me: recognising our struggle doesn’t mean we’re failing. It means we’re still learning. Still engaged. That’s the coach I want to be.

Between Tradition and Learning

Of course, there’s a shadow looming in every dojo: tradition. The romanticism of the old-school, voice-like-thunder, sensei-knows-best dojo. I trained under it. Hell, it still comes out in me sometimes. (Some habits die harder than others). And yes, it works, to a point. But let’s not pretend its the only coaching approach (read: habit) we need.

Ecological dynamics, the fancy academic cousin of common sense, tells us something different. Athletes don’t learn best by copying perfection. Nor do they become 'strong' by following orders. They learn by adapting to pressure, perceiving opportunity, and making decisions in context. If our coaching habits remove that adaptive tension, if we’re scripting every move, we’re not building autonomy. We’re building dependency. (If this sounds suspiciously practical, I unpack more of it, minus the jargon, in my free 7-day coaching course.)

Tradition isn’t sacred when it becomes a shield for lazy pedagogy. When fear masquerades as discipline, or hierarchy stands in for actual connection, we’re just passing on unexamined habits. The old ways weren’t all bad. But they weren’t all right either. Modern doesn’t mean soft. It means smart. It means aligning how we coach with how people actually learn.

The Dojo Evolves (With or Without You)

A dojo isn’t static. It shifts with us, or without us. And if your sessions feel a bit like déjà vu with more sweat, if the same old reactions keep surfacing, if your culture feels stuck... maybe it’s not about effort. Maybe it’s about inertia. Maybe it’s the habits you've stopped noticing.

So after keiko, don’t just ask how they did. Ask how you connected. Whether your structure served learning, or just filled time. Whether your habits reflected your values, or just repeated your past.

Coaching, like kendo, is kata too. Refined by intention. Changed by reflection.

Stir the pot. Break a habit. Build a better one.

And maybe, just maybe, don’t let Brian lead warm-up again until he learns that kicking himself in the groin isn’t a rite of passage. It’s a habit worth breaking.

ps

If the idea of habits, reflection, and not pretending to have it all figured out resonates, I had a great chat with Dr. Joe Hall on exactly that—coaching, growth mindset, and why it’s okay (maybe even necessary) to feel like we’re still figuring it out. You can watch that conversation here. Its worth a click.