Tuesday Teaching Night – first class had 49 students thanks to the current highly successful recruiting drive. My usual mixed group of 5-50 yr-olds plus about 30 newbies, many kids. What a circus. I am super-sensei. So just basics, etiqutte and some tag-sparring.
Senior class – quite high intensity focus pad work to start, strength stuff, then kata. I have revised the count/timing of Taigyoku shodan and nidan from twenty to just five; this is the way it will be done in my dojo from now on. IMO improves the flow and is in better keeping with the intent of these katas, such as I understand it. Hopefully won’t lead to too much confusion when the students have classes with other senseis. Kumite to finish.
Wednesday night – gave senior sensei my opinion regarding the size of my first class. Training was ok – combos in long stance to start. Then some of the junior grades who are training to be senseis had to present ther own 5-step combos and teach the whole group. Mostly mundane, BUT those guys are quite new and don’t always think in the train tracks yet - sometimes there was a different, awkward combination of moves which was great because it was different and awkward. Kata – apparently my Hangetsu is looking as is required (didn’t do the Shoto-kai version haha). And some sparring, always fun.
“49 students”
Tough to teach that big a class — good for you.
Teaching a big class isn’t that big a deal given the standard gkr format –
which I don’t normally adhere to…
Whats hard is teaching something really meaningful and useful and giving each student some personal attention. The kids end up getting more attention than they deserve …
Numbers will inevitably drop off.
Might post something on this in the forum, will think it through.