Teaching – Nicholas Walker https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk Bestselling author, scientist, teacher, dance and karate instructor Sun, 15 Aug 2021 01:01:29 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/nick-100x100.jpg Teaching – Nicholas Walker https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk 32 32 Autobiography of a Short, Fat, Ugly Man: A Kind of Immortality https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/product/autobiography-of-a-short-fat-ugly-man-a-kind-of-immortality/ Sun, 15 Aug 2021 01:01:26 +0000 https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=636 Apologies: I could read when I was three. It’s not unnatural, some children just seem to teach themselves to read, we think it’s by a process of copying adults and interpreting pictures. From the age of about six I was reading a book every day, that is finishing a book every day…a practice I have continued all my life. I’m not saying I read War and Peace in one day but I tend to finish an average sized adult’s book most days. When I was eight I was reading James Bond and books by Alistair McLean and Neville Shute. Mind you I was still reading all the children’s books as well, still do now: Bunter, William, Jennings, The Famous Five and all the others. I read all the heavy stuff in my teens and now regret wasting so much of my time digesting crap like Wuthering Heights and Tom Jones…give me a break. There is nothing in those old fashioned dirges that you cannot find ten times better in a modern book…literary insight my ass. Most of them were written by middle class virgins who knew nothing of life and the only reason they got published was because there were so few people writing during the last century. I took a year to read: The Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire, then there was Boswell’s Life of Johnson both of which were okay. Then there were all the Nordic folk tales and stuff like that. By the age of fourteen I had read the whole of Kingswinford Library half a dozen times. Then when I was thirty eight I was at Exeter University and a professor told us we should read the Aeneid if only in translation, I had always avoided it like the plague because it was in Latin. But I knew about the Aeneid from the Bunter books so I read it and wasn’t that impressed but while I was reading it I had a kind of revelation: I was reading words written by an ordinary bloke some 2000 years ago! A living, breathing man who maybe had just had an argument with his wife or had an upset stomach or was just feeling ticked off with the world. He was communicating with me over huge scans of time and appearing on my page as alive as he had ever been…the thought took my breath away, anything I read or indeed wrote was not limited by the mere lifetime of a man, it could go on forever…it was a Kind of Immortality!]]> All four of these autobiographies in the one book that take the reader right from childhood until the man who is not quite sane runs away around the world on the QE2. The humour and the drama of a man who lives his life a bit differently to most and whose only drive is to write is portrayed in these funny, honest and open books that contain so much action and hilarious happenings from rows with famous Hollywood stars to living with the poorest people in the Middle East. From teaching in the roughest schools in London to the poshest schools in Iraq. The relentless changes of location and beautiful women, the genuine times of real danger where lives are lost to the highest states of luxury…Nick has seen it all!

]]> Kicking the Crap Out of the Martial Arts https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/product/kicking-the-crap-out-of-the-martial-arts-3/ Thu, 01 Oct 2020 19:37:55 +0000 https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=533 This book is an analysis of the Martial Arts by a serious scientist and teacher. Nick Walker (Ph.D. MPhil. Dr.Ed. (AU) BA (Hons) (OU) BSc. (Hons) (OU) BSc.Ed (Hons) (Exon) NASM 6th Dan Karate AMA 1st Dan Jiu Jitsu) has been teaching Karate for over thirty years and is the founder and Chief Instructor of Kernow Karate the most successful independent martial arts organisation in the world. He is also a High School teacher and University Professor and is highly qualified in science. He has a degree from The National Academy of Sports Medicine in California and is a licensed fitness coach, a registered weight training instructor and a insured personal trainer. Nick makes his living by writing bestselling novels and now, despairing of all the pseudo nonsense that pervades the martial arts, all the old wives’ tales and nonsense science that damage the sport, Nick has finally responded by writing this non-fiction book so that other instructors who are genuinely interested in the science of the martial arts can bring themselves up to date…to become a Kernow Karate instructor you have to know all that is in this book! Nick takes all the basics and applies basic science to them: the stances, do they work? The Warm Up, is it necessary? What does it do? How to make your kicks and punches more powerful. How to break, how to do the Three Inch Punch, how to stretch. Does breathing matter? How does shouting effect the blow? He then goes on to explore how to improve martial arts moves: how to make your kicks and punches faster. How to make them harder. How to anticipate when an opponent is going to hit you and where. Proper scientific training techniques that the Olympic athletes all use. In the last third of the book Nick discusses the teaching of sport, the techniques and strategies that professional teachers have spent four years of university learning and he shows how most instructors are wasting the majority of their lesson time. He attempts to bring our most researched skill (education) into the martial arts: what is the attention span of an eight year old boy? What is the attention span of an eight year old girl? How best to teach a move…show it? Talk about it? Do it? Read about it? The answers will surprise and probably horrify those of you who are not professional teachers. He shows how to discipline, how to dominate a class without getting them to hate you, how mere body language can freeze an entire room. How to keep the members interested and the kids coming. And lastly, he shows you the dangers of teaching sport: how certain moves can injure a child but not an adult. Long term damage of the body. How to recognise certain illnesses and how to cope with them. How to protect yourself from inappropriate allegations. A serious book, written in a very light hearted, easy to read manner…an essential aid to anyone who wants to become a good instructor.

]]> 120 Lesson Plans From Kernow Karate https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/product/120-lesson-plans-from-kernow-karate/ Sun, 27 Sep 2020 20:31:28 +0000 https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=512 Kernow Karate was created by Dr Nicholas Walker over thirty years ago and has become the most successful Martial Arts club in Britain. Creating a style based on fitness and self-defence with a strong scientific pedigree Nicholas has started up clubs all over the country which are continuing to flourish to this day.

Constantly striving to create interesting lessons with innovative training methods has added to the success of Kernow Karate.

These are 120 of the best of Nick’s lesson plans which promise to be: the latest in scientific knowledge, very beneficial for fitness, and most of all fun!

 

 

]]> Kicking the Crap Out of the Martial Arts! https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/product/kicking-the-crap-out-of-the-martial-arts-2/ Sun, 27 Sep 2020 20:21:19 +0000 https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=509 This book is an analysis of the Martial Arts by a serious scientist and teacher. Nick Walker (Ph.D. MPhil. Dr.Ed. (AU) BA (Hons) (OU) BSc. (Hons) (OU) BSc.Ed (Hons) (Exon) NASM 6th Dan Karate AMA 1st Dan Jiu Jitsu) has been teaching Karate for over thirty years and is the founder and Chief Instructor of Kernow Karate the most successful independent martial arts organisation in the world. He is also a High School teacher and University Professor and is highly qualified in science. He has a degree from The National Academy of Sports Medicine in California and is a licensed fitness coach, a registered weight training instructor and a insured personal trainer. Nick makes his living by writing bestselling novels and now, despairing of all the pseudo nonsense that pervades the martial arts, all the old wives’ tales and nonsense science that damage the sport, Nick has finally responded by writing this non-fiction book so that other instructors who are genuinely interested in the science of the martial arts can bring themselves up to date…to become a Kernow Karate instructor you have to know all that is in this book! Nick takes all the basics and applies basic science to them: the stances, do they work? The Warm Up, is it necessary? What does it do? How to make your kicks and punches more powerful. How to break, how to do the Three Inch Punch, how to stretch. Does breathing matter? How does shouting effect the blow? He then goes on to explore how to improve martial arts moves: how to make your kicks and punches faster. How to make them harder. How to anticipate when an opponent is going to hit you and where. Proper scientific training techniques that the Olympic athletes all use. In the last third of the book Nick discusses the teaching of sport, the techniques and strategies that professional teachers have spent four years of university learning and he shows how most instructors are wasting the majority of their lesson time. He attempts to bring our most researched skill (education) into the martial arts: what is the attention span of an eight year old boy? What is the attention span of an eight year old girl? How best to teach a move…show it? Talk about it? Do it? Read about it? The answers will surprise and probably horrify those of you who are not professional teachers. He shows how to discipline, how to dominate a class without getting them to hate you, how mere body language can freeze an entire room. How to keep the members interested and the kids coming. And lastly, he shows you the dangers of teaching sport: how certain moves can injure a child but not an adult. Long term damage of the body. How to recognise certain illnesses and how to cope with them. How to protect yourself from inappropriate allegations. A serious book, written in a very light hearted, easy to read manner…an essential aid to anyone who wants to become a good instructor.

]]> Getting to Grips With Grammar Two https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/product/getting-to-grips-with-grammar-two-2/ Sun, 27 Sep 2020 00:44:59 +0000 https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=505 All those niggling little grammar problems that always worried you explained in an easy fun way.

]]> The Autobiography of a Short, Fat, Ugly Man: Only the Brave https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/product/the-autobiography-of-a-short-fat-ugly-man-only-the-brave/ Wed, 16 Sep 2020 01:39:40 +0000 https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=402 Gentle Reader: I have no idea why anyone would want to read my poor autobiography but my agent kept pressing me and finally one miserable winter when I was trapped in Scotland I finally wrote it. Surprisingly it sold remarkably well and I was pushed to produce the follow ups. This is the third in that line and concerns the time when my first marriage had ended and I ran away to University to study for an Education degree though I had no intention of ever becoming a teacher. This is where I met my second wife and it recounts our time at The University of Exeter and particularly our experiences doing our teaching practice in Tower Hamlets in London. The experiences we had there warranted a book all of their own. The fourth I will bring out later this year if the Corona lockdown goes on much longer here in Mallorca. This fourth one will take you right up to where I ran away around the world on the QE2 and while doing so I wrote emails to my clubs back home about the funny incidents that happened. Later on I brought them out as: Going Round The Bend On The QE2 which turned into a best-seller and prompted a number of follow-ups. These are really much funnier than the pathetic stories of my youth so I urge you to read them first!

 

]]> Kicking the Crap Out of the Martial Arts https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/product/kicking-the-crap-out-of-the-martial-arts/ Thu, 03 Sep 2020 21:02:23 +0000 https://www.nicholaswalker.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=305 This book is an analysis of the Martial Arts by a serious scientist and teacher. Nick Walker (Ph.D. MPhil. Dr.Ed. (AU) BA (Hons) (OU) BSc. (Hons) (OU) BSc.Ed (Hons) (Exon) NASM 6th Dan Karate AMA 1st Dan Jiu Jitsu) has been teaching Karate for over thirty years and is the founder and Chief Instructor of Kernow Karate the most successful independent martial arts organisation in the world. He is also a High School teacher and University Professor and is highly qualified in science. He has a degree from The National Academy of Sports Medicine in California and is a licensed fitness coach, a registered weight training instructor and a insured personal trainer. Nick makes his living by writing bestselling novels and now, despairing of all the pseudo nonsense that pervades the martial arts, all the old wives’ tales and nonsense science that damage the sport, Nick has finally responded by writing this non-fiction book so that other instructors who are genuinely interested in the science of the martial arts can bring themselves up to date…to become a Kernow Karate instructor you have to know all that is in this book! Nick takes all the basics and applies basic science to them: the stances, do they work? The Warm Up, is it necessary? What does it do? How to make your kicks and punches more powerful. How to break, how to do the Three Inch Punch, how to stretch. Does breathing matter? How does shouting effect the blow? He then goes on to explore how to improve martial arts moves: how to make your kicks and punches faster. How to make them harder. How to anticipate when an opponent is going to hit you and where. Proper scientific training techniques that the Olympic athletes all use. In the last third of the book Nick discusses the teaching of sport, the techniques and strategies that professional teachers have spent four years of university learning and he shows how most instructors are wasting the majority of their lesson time. He attempts to bring our most researched skill (education) into the martial arts: what is the attention span of an eight year old boy? What is the attention span of an eight year old girl? How best to teach a move…show it? Talk about it? Do it? Read about it? The answers will surprise and probably horrify those of you who are not professional teachers. He shows how to discipline, how to dominate a class without getting them to hate you, how mere body language can freeze an entire room. How to keep the members interested and the kids coming. And lastly, he shows you the dangers of teaching sport: how certain moves can injure a child but not an adult. Long term damage of the body. How to recognise certain illnesses and how to cope with them. How to protect yourself from inappropriate allegations. A serious book, written in a very light hearted, easy to read manner…an essential aid to anyone who wants to become a good instructor.

]]>