So tonight I get to run the tuesday night class, tuesday is a new night for our karate club in an effort to trim down the monday and wednesday classes, but not very many moved to tuesday. So I will maybe have 1 or 2 students at the most. 1 green belt usually shows up and a second green belt may also show. I've been helping out with classes for the better part of 2 years or so now since I got my blue belt (now red last august). So I'm used to directing my little corner of affairs during a full class teaching something specfic. But tonight, I'm in charge which is kind of intimitading - what if 20 people decide to show up?! and kind of not since it'll likely be 4 people or less. There is a under 16 ju jitsu class that runs at the same time since our tuesday class is so small (and so is theirs - 5 or 6 kids) so I have to get them going with their instructor and that kind of thing, but I don't have to worry about instructing them. But it was pretty cool to have sensi ask me to be 'the man' for a class, even if it turns out i'm a leader of none
You should combine classes. That's be cool. Do some striking training with the karate class and some close range work with the jiu jutsu class! I reckon that sounds like good fun!
just keep them moving. You can line them up doing the same thing together, that way you can sortof watch many of them at the same time. or do technique lines - single and double single- a single file line, the person at the head of the line does a given technique or drill etc on the person after them, then rotates to the end of the line. Repeat as necessary. double - only works with even number of students! students line up in 2 lines facing each other. everyone on the left does the tech, everyone on the right does the tech, then rotate. but the "rotate" is the trick... Pick one of the "corner" students and they stay put, they do not rotate. Everyone else moves one "spot" to their right ... A B C D E F G H becomes A D B F C H E G then A F D H B G C E and so on...
Oh i like that idea for the double lines! when we do partner work, we usually have one partner, for a few minutes, then switch.. but that double line is a good idea, lots of different people for the same technique all in a short time.
so that went pretty well for the first 10 minutes or so there was only one Karate student there and 5 ju jitsu kids (not the karate student I expected though - this one was an orange belt) so the ju jitsu teacher for the kids class says to me, these guys have a grading coming up, so can we borrow your student for a bit to have even numbers well start off with ikkio (sp? I don't have my book handy) so I say ok, he knows that that should be ok. so the first thing she then tells the student to do once they are paired up? Body motions - Tenkens(sp? again) the attacker grabs the same side wrist(in the excersise they did), and the tori steps to the inside or outside, makes their arms strong and pulls the other person around like a whip, works like a dream to off balance someone. So my student didn't really know what to do with that, we don't get into that kind of thing until green or purple belt but for the ju jitsu folks that's a basic technique. I I let them finish that excersise, my student was not really enjoying himself doing that stuff, so I waited for a natural break in the action and said, ok, come on over here with me and well do our ciriculem, these guys are working on grading stuff... and had him working the kicking back, with his stuff, when 2 other students showed up a green and a blue belt - long story as to why they were late - but so then I had all three of them going doing kick on the bag, and then switch to our 1st kata for a couple runs through. It was pretty cool really and everyone seemed to have a good time.
It just came to me that we do sometimes do a excersise like this, called running the gauntlet. people are lined up fairly well spaced out in 2 rows and the person at the start goes down from side to side doing a specfic technique on each person then when he's gone through everyone, becomes the last person on the gauntlet... then the next person comes down and so on... if you get what i mean
we always do 2 man drills like those double lines you put up, everyone gets to train do Doy Chong or gau choi or grinding arms with everyone else, and you always every lesson get Sifu as well, basically means your arms are sore/bruised whatever but you will get a proper work out when you get him i actually look forward to training with Sifu as it's basically what you have to aspire to. double lines do work the best though if you ask me, height adjustment strength and technique all come into play.
