As many of you may know, Athens Yoshukai accepts new students twice a year, usually at the beginning of each academic semester. There are a few reasons for this, and now that I've spent 2 years actively involved in the teaching process, I can confirm that this really works well for us.
Probably the hardest thing with a new group of students--even students who start at roughly the same time--is keeping the momentum of classes moving forward while making sure that there isn't too much of a lapse in new material. It's definitely a challenge, and a well-executed approach really pays off when a group tests to 8th-kyu yellow belt. After that, fundamentals are in place and we get to see the new martial artist hooked on the fun of training.
So, shop talk aside, the beginning of a new semester is always exciting, and more importantly, it gives us all an "excitement booster shot" that drives us right into our own practice feeling renewed as well. Here's a little look into some highlights of the past week:
One of my favorite traditions--I suppose it would be a tradition. At any rate, it always happens--is after new students have had their first few days of class. The class reforms as 2 to 3 long lines, and everyone in the room executes a basic block, punch, or kick in drill...100% with full kiai. The spirit goes through the roof, and at that moment, it becomes clear that from day 1, we're always working on our basic technique. It happened my first day of class 3 years ago, and I always enjoy the experience.
Monday nights, we have a half-hour's class alternating judo and hapkido. This mostly serves to enrich us with skill-sets that some of us don't get regular opportunities to develop, and it's a lot of fun. Last monday, we spent the half-hour working on grappling, which will be an event at our upcoming local tournament. After learning a basic pin/escape and a guard pass, everyone had the opportunity to do some light grappling randori (free practice, also known as "rolling"). If you've never seen this in action, it's a real treat. With very few exceptions, smiles are everywhere, and I'm willing to bet green money that the new students who got the opportunity to grapple on their first day will remember that experience for a while.
Thursday brought it's own bit of exciting fun. We began with a team warm-up exercise composed of straight back/forth laps across the dojo of the following exercises: bear crawls, crab walks, full-body pulls (man...), and leapfrogs. There was one catch...the two lines with a brown belt at the front had 4 students to Sensei's 5, which meant that the high rank had 2 full laps an exercise! Now, to be honest, I'm only moaning and groaning for comic effect...doing the extra exercise was a fun challenge, especially on the full-body pulls (lying flat, dragging your body across the floor with long-drags of both hands).
Also, Thursday night, we had a suprise get-together as a thank you for Sensei McCandless. When I found out this was going to happen, I was moved by the initiative that 2 of our yellow/blue belt students took in making this event a success. It was a fitting tribute, and I'm hoping it is the first of many fun social events for the dojo.
Obviously, the excitement in 6 class can't be adequately distilled in just one post, but this is a good sampler. This week, keep an eye out for a musing on some recent days of fight training, and more on Operation Shodan Fit. As always, thanks for the continued support--seeing and feeling the results of this exercise plan has been great, but the constant cheering on from my friends has made it even better. OSU!
