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Positive energy and attitude. You want to find an instructor who is there, and doesn't have his upper belts teaching all the time. Sit in and participate in some classes, make sure you feel comfortable with the school and how the other instructors handle themselves and treat students. Too many times I've walked into a school and it's be constant yelling at ...

He should have great students. That is: you realistically have more chance of becoming like the students of a teacher rather than like him/herself. There are plenty of high-ranked senseis with bad students out there. They are very good at practice and have a great reputation, but apparently they don't get good results at teaching.

Are there core characteristics one should look for? Affability. Quite simply, we learn more from teachers we like. We like people who are like ourselves, or rather, like the people we wish we were. Simply put, if there's something that we find particularly lovely about another person, we're more inclined to do as they ask and find interesting the ...

Generosity. Good teachers want you to "catch the bug" and make the training your own. They want you to fall in love with it. To get you to that point they will go out of their way to support your development. If the teacher doesn't have a giving spirit, it will show. They'll concern themselves only with the more experienced students. A good teacher will find ...

I agree with the first two comments, is there instructing and has great students. If you see someone who is third degree black belt but looks sloppy in everything they're doing you may want to look else where. More importantly you want to find a school that doesn't just let you test every two months. Those schools are just trying to make the extra money ...