2022-12-14

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

Another new student! That’s great, but can get frustrating for existing students when constantly going “back to square one.” Some schools deal with this by only allowing students to join at a certain time, others do it by having a special “beginner-beginner” class, but I prefer to do it by giving similar, but level-appropriate, activities to all of the students in the same class.

For example, I may say something like this to my class:

Okay, listen up!

• If you’re brand new, put your hands on your hips and step across the floor in front stance. Everyone else will be doing more, but I just want you do step in front stance.
• White belts and yellow belts, I want you to do oi-zuki.
• Blue and green belts, you’re going to do age-uke, then gyaku-zuki.
• Purple belts and up, I want age-uke, mae-ashi mae-geri, then gyaku-zuki.

Everyone got it? Okay, here we go … Ichi!, Ni!, San!

This keeps everyone involved, at a level appropriate to their level of skill, while allowing junior students to see what they’ll be up against later.