mixed levels, small numbers

[JusticeZero]

Currently I have to go with a fixed period of classes (everyone starts at the same time) with repeat students taking the same class. The class size is tny - I had 4 students on the first day, one dropped for medical reasons and another just vanished (and that doesn't even count the one who signed up and never showed)

So now I have one new student just trying to learn the basics, and one student who's been with me for a few months. I don't want to confuse the new person, and I don't want to ignore the senior. I've tried working different levels of the same material so far, and caught the new people trying to learn what the senior is being given as corrections and overloading, forgetting the stuff I told them to work on. (EG: New, you work on just putting your feet down in the right place. .. Senior, I want you to focus on turning your hips out more, like so. ... *looks back - New has her feet totally in the wrong place, and is poorly trying to turn her hips out more, which wasn't a problem she had to begin with*)

Plus, I want to keep the senior working on the material we won't cover until later in the class.

Any suggestions?

[GhostlySykanRyu]

Well, if you see the problem happening, just let the newer student know (privately if necessary) that she needs to concentrate on what you are telling her, and not on what you are telling the senior student. I wouldn't be offended by it, though you know how she would react.

[JusticeZero]

Been working on it. The other issue is that I need to make paired drills that will challenge both of them, and that's pretty close to impossible.

[greenbelt_girl15]

Wow!And I thought the dojo I go to is small.We have about 8 people in my class ranging from white belt to green belt so I can understand your problem.I would take GhostlySykanRyu's advice.If you can't find anything that the students to do together give the senior student an exercize that she/he can do on her/his own and then work with the newbie for a bit switch back and forth between the two students.If you're teaching the new student a kata have the other join in tell her/him that practice makes perfect and that after a few hundred repatitions she/he will start to understand the kata.

Good luck!

[JusticeZero]

heh. we don't have forms. The main worry is just that all the best drills are paired. You have to learn how to flow with an attack and set up for a counter, and most people can't hold the other person in their mind - we usually use a chair, but there are none in my room, and it only works for some things. I'm a bit dismayed at the idea of having to buy and carry foldup chairs into class every day for a class held in a school.

[jarrettmeyer]

"You don't know something unless you know it well enough to teach it."

I don't know who said it first, but I wholeheartedly believe it true. This would be a good opportunity for you more experienced student to teach something he learned a few months ago.

(I know you don't do kata, so just take this as an example.) I was taught my first kata by a green belt. Could she have been working on her own material? Sure, but other black belts were helping others work on higher kata, and she was the only person left willing to help. I was especially grateful for her help, and she got to work an early kata that she hadn't practiced in a few months.

Your older student may forget something, and that's okay. It's a learning experience for everyone involved.