When playing a teaching game as the weaker player, I have 3 pieces of advice.
1. Play your usual game
This is the most important thing you can do. If you usually play fast, play fast. If you usually play for influence, play for influence. Don't overthink your plays because you don't want to mess up and don't underthink them because you know you'll be corrected anyway.
Imagine you are playing someone of the same rank. A good teacher will strive not to overwhelm you, so definitely play to win.
If you take handicap stones for the teaching game, that's fine. Again, just try to play normally. If you prefer to back off from approach moves, don't pincer just because you have support stones. If you usually pincer don't back off because you already have free moves.
2. When you make a mistake, learn from it
You are going to make a blunder in the game somewhere that your opponent calls you on. That is a given in a teaching game. So when you do, figure out why the move was bad in an absolute sense. What I mean is - ask questions and look at variations until you understand why your move was bad beyond just this one particular situation. Was it that you attached to a weak stone two moves earlier? Was it that you missed a key tesuji or shape point? Ask your teacher what the root of the mistake is and don't be afraid to probe for a deeper lesson.
The point of a teaching game is to learn. You must learn something applicable from the mistake.
It is up to you and your teacher whether it is best to undo the move, that is debatable and whether it is good depends on how bad the blunder is and other circumstances. Before you undo the move, however, make sure you actually understand why it was a bad move.
3. Be forgiving of your teacher
It is unlikely your teacher will be a professional player who understands every angle of the game. High SDK players vary in their ability at different points of the game. Even dan level amateurs can be very wrong in certain circumstances. You shouldn't blindly follow the advice of an amateur, but don't question everything your teacher says just because you have a different opinion. Remember, they are still better than you - that is why you can learn from them.
If your teacher doesn't know exactly why a move was wrong, that's okay. Accept their inability to help you in that one case, but don't think that just because they don't understand the intricate nature of a rare joseki that they are unable to help your game in general. Good teachers will admit when they can't help you, bad teachers fake knowledge to try to keep you interested. Honestly, a teacher saying "I don't know enough about this" is often a sign you've found a good teacher because their pride isn't leading them to mislead you.
And if you do still want to know the answer to a question your teacher couldn't give you, then when you are done with the game, you can always post it for review here. Ask about the move. Maybe someone will have some insight your teacher lacked.
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) So tonight I got my first teaching game in a while.
