Help for a new club leader!

[snarefire]

We are making the transition from an interest group, to an official club and dojo at my college. As such my sensei has asked me to step up and take the reins. I would love any help and advice that this forum could give me. We are practitioners of shotokan karate, and the club is open to all disciplines.

[Lupin1]

Go to your student government right away and start finding out the procedure for becoming a club and applying for funding and all that. Then after break start advertising. Besides keeping up with all the student government requirements, there's not all that much to it.

[bushido_man96]

Demonstrations in your quad or student union might help give you a boost. You might also consider finding out what it takes for your club to offer course credits for PE or health or something like that. Our TKD school has done this in the past, and the Aikido club has just begun offering credit hours as a class.

[snarefire]

Im already in touch with the student government, and the student advisers, so as far as the transition paperwork, that is taken care of. advertsising is just waiting till after the break already. Im looking for tips on how to lead, and deal with a club, and form teams and the like. More like a dojo class

[bushido_man96]

Well, your style likely has a curriculum, so go with that for your class formats, and work in some sparring classes for competition and the like. Check with other area schools to see if they host tournaments and things like that.

[Lupin1]

Im already in touch with the student government, and the student advisers, so as far as the transition paperwork, that is taken care of. advertsising is just waiting till after the break already. Im looking for tips on how to lead, and deal with a club, and form teams and the like. More like a dojo class

Hmm. So you are going to run it more like a club (prez, vp, secretary, etc with everyone on equal footing) or more like a traditional dojo (sensei, senior student, respect the higher ranks, etc)?

[evergrey]

Are you being asked to be the sensei in this dojo?

[DWx]

Im already in touch with the student government, and the student advisers, so as far as the transition paperwork, that is taken care of. advertsising is just waiting till after the break already. Im looking for tips on how to lead, and deal with a club, and form teams and the like. More like a dojo class

Delegate. Get people to fill captain, secretary, equipment rep, etc. positions then you yourself can just deal with the teaching aspect. I'd also suggest just sticking to your current school's curriculum.

[still kicking]

Snarefire, I am wondering what you mean by "open to all disciplines". Do you mean different styles of karate, or different martial arts? My thought is it would be hard to develop a curriculum that tried to incorporate too many things. If it was me, I would stick with what you know, Shotokan, as far as what you teach, but welcome people from other styles to train as well. I'm not sure how it would work as far as kata and basics, but for sparring it could be very valuable. Another thought is you might have people from other disciplines teach what they know as well, depending on their skill level. In any case, I wish you success with it!

[tallgeese]

I trained at a couple of similar set ups while at school and then grad school. I can say that is excellent experience and I strongly encourage you to take and enjoy the opportunity that it will afford you. It was a great time to see and do other arts and get a feel for things I'd like to persue later.

You'll find that you get a wide variety fo people with different backgrounds. Even those who have a specific school for their art or club will end up swinging in to get more sparring time or mat time or train with some of the specilist you'll ed up with.

I'd suggest that less formal is your best met. You're not ranking or tied by stylistic lesson plans. Have the required positions as mandated by the university but don't be too serious by the structures you see in most dojos.

Cultivate those people who specialize in different styles. During my time in college I got to train with a really great stick guy. To this day I can't tell you what he studied, but I can tell you that this time really heightened my weapons game. If you've got a grappler utilize him. Come up with some training together to integrate things.

Free fight and drill alot, more than dong style specific kata and such. People will usually come to a multiple dicipline club to train because they don't have a specific school there. Don't force feed them a whole new fight paradigm, let them learn how to apply what they are doing and pick up what others are doing as they choose.

Try to focus on a single training goal each class and build those into short blocks that lets everyone get good at a set of skills or drills before moving on. However, embrace the mentality of this sort of club an don't be afraid to have nights where some people work some things and others work another. Consider circuiting everyone thru "art" stations once everyone has a basic graps of several speciliaty drills. It changes up things ans lets everyone have fun.

Enjoy those training sessions. They were some of the best of my young ma career. Good luck, keep us posted.