2022-05-04

2022-05-04, Wednesday

Teaching my regular classes at the Ross Farnsworth - East Valley YMCA.

It’s official! We’re going to be ending the youth class 15 minutes earlier, bringing it down to 60 minutes, and starting the adult class 15 minutes earlier, bringing it up to 90 minutes. I announced this to the parents and got a round of cheers, so I think this is a move in the right direction. I also had two new students tonight - two young ladies aged 10 and 13 - and I’m thrilled. The class has been all boys so far and it’s great to see some girls in class. Even better, when I asked them why they joined the class, one of them said, “I just love karate!” How awesome is that?

With two first-day students in class, things naturally gravitated towards getting them going. That meant reviewing a lot of “first day” basics that might ordinarily cause continuing students to be bored, but the trick to keeping them engaged is keeping them involved. Instead of demonstrating techniques for the new students myself, I had the “experienced” white belts do it. When walking around making corrections, I’d frequently say “new students, look at how so-and-so is doing this and try to copy him.” Using more experienced students as an example when teaching basics gives them a sense of pride and ownership in their technique.