Which do you prefer and why? A "mom and pop" school or a large commercial school. I think at first i enjoyed being in a large commercial school for the sheer number of different people to train with, but now I'm kind of glad I run a small "mom and pop" operation. It's very friendly and warm and everyone knows everyone else. Also the progression rate is much quicker.
Personally I prefer a middle path, a large school with lots of assistants so that you still get personal attention. Our school holds about 50 students most of the time, and all of us know each other so its kind of half way between the two.
I have gone from a class consisting of 3 Sensei and 3 students to 2 Sensei and normally 15-17 students. I'll admit the personal attention was great in the smaller dojo and you couldn't be missed! We were also able to spend more time on different things in a class. However, the slightly larger class has helped too. It means my sparring has become slightly more varied as I train with different levels of trained karateka. Other than these few reasons I can see little difference in the classes so far. However, I haven't been at this new dojo for long.
Most of my training has been done with clubs that were small for the most part. For example, in my college days my Kenpo club trained at a student residential complex and we numbered no more than 10 students and the instructor. When I studied Shotokan, we worked out on a military base and again the numbers were anywhere from 8-12 students which included kids. The attention we received was great and everyone knew each other pretty well. Another advantage to a smaller club was that we could train for as long as we wanted to. Unlike the commercial dojo where many had strict time restrictions because of the number of classes held.
I'd say you need both. I tend to train in reasonably large clubs, but when I travel the 110mile once a week round trip to train with my Tai Jitsu Sensei I tend to train in a small group. So big groups are good for scrapping with different body types/attitudes/abilities, small groups are best for technical stuff. Thanx
I don't like commerial groups, I train in a small group, and personally, I prefer it to big groups. I trained in a large group at my old uni club, and I didn't like it. At my current club, we have about about 12 people, and five of those are instructors. We don't get too many kids either because of the intensity of the training, which suits me fine The problem I find with the small group I'm in is I end up sparring with the same person pretty much all the time. It gets predictable, and I feel can disadvantage a bit me in competitions.
