Adaptability: The Real Instructor Skill

Almost everything in life has advantages and disadvantages, and experience is no exception. The real question is what we do with it. Do we translate experience into something practical, or do we treat it like a trophy and assume it automatically applies everywhere?

After a positive experience, can we learn from it? Of course. But learning from something does not mean it becomes a rule. It also does not mean it will work again and again, or that it fits everyone. Instructors, especially, have to hold two truths at the same time: experience is valuable, and experience is limited.

That’s because we can share knowledge, but we can’t truly share experience.

We can talk about what happened. We can describe what we felt, what we noticed, and what we decided. We can even explain why we chose one action over another. Still, experience is something you must live, and then analyze. And even after analysis, it remains only one moment in time, in one situation, with specific people, under specific circumstances. Change one detail and the outcome may change too. That is why analysis is so important and, honestly, why it is often rare. It is simply easier to take experience and turn it into an absolute.

Over more than 30 years of training Krav Maga, and more than 25 years of teaching around the world, I’ve collected a lot of experience in training, teaching, and real-life confrontations, both my own and from others. Some of it came from success, some from failure, and much of it came from simply being forced to adapt. And one period, in particular, taught me more about teaching than almost anything else.

It happened about 20 years ago, near the end of my regular IDF service. At the time, I was stationed at the Wingate Institute on the military side, responsible for the IDF Krav Maga instructor courses, and also, for regular Krav Maga training for different units on base. At the same time, I had signed a contract for extra service at the Lotar school, which later became almost three amazing years. There I was responsible for teaching Krav Maga to many of the IDF’s special units. On paper, that already sounds like a full schedule. In reality, it got even heavier.

During that same period, my civilian Krav Maga instructor had to fly abroad to teach soI also had to cover his gym and teach all the civilian groups. That meant that for about three weeks I wasn’t just teaching military instructors and military units, and then special units. I was also teaching kids, youngs, teens, adult beginners, and advanced adults, some of them black belts. Five groups in the same day.

Some days looked like this:

I would start in the morning at Lotar, teaching special units. Then I would go to Wingate to teach regular units and work with the instructor course. After that I would go straight to the civilian gym and begin the evening with the most dangerous group of all... Kids aged 6 to 8 right after was time for the youngs, 8 to 12. Then the most challenging group, teens aged 12 to 15. After that, adult beginners of all ages. And finally, at the end of the night, the advanced group. Around 22:00, I could finally call it a day.

I had this schedule twice a week. The other days were “easier,” meaning only slightly fewer classes at the civilian gym.

The first week was brutal. Not just very phisically tiring, but mentally heavy, because the responsibility is not only to survive the day, it is to give every group real quality training. And after a few days of running on pure will power, it became obvious that if I kept teaching every group in the standard way, I would burn out fast and they would get less than they deserved.

So I made a decision. Instead of trying to keep each group inside its usual teaching style, I would mix the teaching styles on purpose.

I started teaching the special units the way I would teach civilians. More explanation. More communication. More human. More names.

Then I taught the regular military units the way I would teach teens. More drills, more intensity, more competition, more pressure.

With the kids, I went the opposite direction and taught them like a regular military unit. Structure, discipline, attention to detail, fast reactions, following instructions accurately.

With the youngs, I treated them like an instructor course. I explained how we build exercises, why we choose them, and I gave them responsibility. They corrected each other and learned how to think like instructors.

With the teens, I treated them like special units. Not because they were soldiers, but because they needed the challenge. Physical work, mental resilience, and a stronger focus on pushing through difficulty.

With adult beginners, I taught them closer to an advanced group. I used principles they already understood, showed them higher-level logic, and demonstrated how simple the system becomes when you understand the structure behind it.

And with the advanced group, I did the most unexpected thing. I taught them like kids. Games, competitions, and pressure in a playful form. Not to lower the level, but to sharpen timing, creativity, and decision-making without ego.

What surprised me was how well it worked.

Each group improved in a different way, and each group enjoyed the training more. The kids became more disciplined. The youngs gained confidence and responsibility. The teens became tougher and more focused. The adults progressed faster because they were treated like they could handle more. The advanced students became lighter, sharper, and more adaptive.

And for me, the biggest lesson was simple.

Experience is not a formula. It is a material.

Experience is valuable, but only after you break it down. What was the goal? What were the variables? What made it work? What would make it fail? That kind of thinking turns experience into a teaching tool. The problem starts when we use experience as authority. “It worked for me, so it must be right.” That mindset creates rigid instructors, and rigidity is the opposite of self-defense.

Those weeks were exhausting, but they were also one of the most informative teaching periods of my life. Looking back, I’m grateful for the intensity, because it forced me to evolve. And I’m honored I had the chance to live it, learn from it, and carry that lesson into every class I teach today.