My understanding of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu really shot up once I started teaching.
Teaching forces you to put things into words that you only had an implicit understanding of prior. It reinforces your existing knowledge and forces you to seek answers to questions you didn't know you had.
> "Teaching forces you to put things into words that you only had an implicit understanding of prior. It reinforces your existing knowledge and forces you to seek answers to questions you didn't know you had. "
Bears repeating! When node was originally released years ago, I decided to force myself into public speaking because I knew it was a weakness of mine. I also wanted to learn node, so I signed up for a code camp talk on "real-time" websites with node and websockets. Previously I had "learned" languages like Pascal, C++, C#, Python, etc. But I'd never had to learn those languages to a point where I could explain them in simple terms. The fact that I was going to be presenting on the topic took me to depths of node that I hadn't had to explore with other languages. There's a big difference between being able to leverage a closure effectively and being able to communicate what a closure is and how and when it's useful and when to avoid it. I've been a fan of public speaking and mentoring (and node) ever since.
Funny you mention that; my son and I trained together and we would drill at home. Common stuff that noobs need, like side control escapes etc. it was amazing how much more sense it made live after “teaching” him at home.
Teaching forces you to put things into words that you only had an implicit understanding of prior. It reinforces your existing knowledge and forces you to seek answers to questions you didn't know you had.