Training Advice...

[Lance C]

All,

I need some training advice:

My training is Stagnant.

The club I teach at has been going strong for about 2 years, we enjoy slow growth and a quality education. The problem with a young club is that I am not teaching the advanced belts yet ie Brown and Up. Therefore my worst belts to perform are Brown and Up. My Yellow through Blue is very good ;)

My question is that should I be savouring teaching, as that is how my Kenpo really came together, and let the club "catch up" so that my Kenpo is good all over, or should I be working on my next belt level (3rd Black Belt?)

Some advice from people who went through something like this would be most appreciated.

-Lance C

[administrator]

You should always enjoy your teaching. If not, your students will also stop enjoying your lessons.

We have a DVD series designed to assist your teaching skills - The Instructor SeriesTeaching the Martial Arts.

For your personal growth, you should always perfect what you have, and learn new material so that you do not fall into stagnation. The balance between how much to learn new material is one that you should keep logs on to avoid burnout and overtraining.

Kevin Lamkin
Site Administrator

[warrior-scholar]

Hopefully you are continuing to evolve in your understanding of Kenpo and teaching methodology as you go along, even if you don't get to practice the higher belts as often. Your awareness is a sign of progress-I am going through the same thing with my current club. I have made a concerted effort to train my techniques from the higher belts within the class. Just don't allow them to talk too much about how cool or devastating they are - time waster. You need to use students as training partners!
There have been times when I have stopped learning new material and focused on teaching, but never for an extended period. During those times I would focus on improving what I already know. Maybe you should take some time to go back and intensely review your material from the higher belts as though you were preparing for a belt test.
Best Wishes!

[Lance C]

Thanks for the replies,

I bought the instructor series. It was quite excellent, much of the material affects what I do in class as well as administratively.

I do have a "Kenpo" log on an Excel Spreadhseet. It logs that last time I worked out a technique in the Ideal Phase, although some of the junior belts just have an "x" in the box since the technique gets worked out extensively each week, and my memory could not easily loose them.

However, having a different and lower requirement Kenpo background, my memory seems to not hold the extensions well, since most of the one's I learned were significantly shorter. Those have been very hard work, and are the one's that need the most review. My martial memory is now much longer. Which apparently affects technique flow.

What I tried was reviewing each belt level by rotating number. Once a week I would do two techniques from each belt, ie #1 and #2 first week, all belts, then #3 and #4 the next week from each belt etc..

This was a good way to review in class, as everyone could use their training books in class (a notebook containing a spreadsheet of belt requirements for each level passed and the current one they are working on, each page coloured accordingly to belt colour) to find out what was being reviewed the next week. People would often practice over the weekend to prepare for the review the following week.


Although personally I changed my regimen to go through each belt level, since the techniques are excellently progressive in education, I find in this manner "connects" more, as well as working the technique families together. ie The "Ram" Techniques, when worked as a family really gives you an idea of of the series of events that happen during a tackle, catching the tackle early, late and early enough to move into it.

I took some personal time after class last night and from the Library of Kenpo worked on my First Two Green Belt extensions with a partner. Other than being immensly larger than my uke and finding my circular claws being turned into horizontal claws ;) it was rather exciting to learn some new material. I also realized how long it takes to work something new out. We spent about 2 hours on the "physics" of the moves, my Blue Belt uke likes to "dummy" since he wants to understand the forces that can work against you. I think he is well onto something into his training.

Also it appears that by having advanced material being demonstrated to the students well before, they can get an idea of where their training is leading them.


-Lance C