How much is enough?

[shadowspawn]

So as of lately, my head sensei has been out of class for a decent amount of time leaving me in charge of drilling his students as well as my own. Last class, he sat in on one of the classes I was heading and criticized me for drilling the basics for roughly 75% of the class. Admittedly about half the class are white belts and the others only a kyu or 2 above, but how much drilling is too much drilling?

We always start our basics from naihanchi and with every technique, I emphasize maintaining a strong stance and getting the hip action into the motion until they get it right. Same thing with progressives. I always emphasize planting your feet and getting a strong foundation before striking etc. But with all this fine tuning, over an hour has already passed and we haven't even begun kata. I'd like to pick up the pace of the class, but it just doesn't seem possible with all of the (relatively large) issues I see such as weak stance, no hip action, no focus, etc.

[MasterPain]

Of course, the structure will be different in a kata based art, but I think beginners should drill a lot, followed by some structured, semi-live drilling. A few months in, it should be about an equal balance of drills, semi-live drills, and more free style sparring or rolling. More advanced students should spend more time on live drills and sparring, and work some drills based on weak areas of the game.

With that said, the head instructor is the head instructor, so just go with it. It'll all come out in the wash.

[Dobbersky]

My personal view is that there is never enough or too much Kihon (Basics), I would recommend getting one of the books on teaching Martial Arts that you can get on EBay/Amazon on that very topic. The y go into depth as to how to structure a class and what content should be within it.

Don't worry about your Sensei's Critique, If he didn't critique your lesson I would be worried

OSU

[Ueshirokarate]

Strange criticism. I agree with the others. At the end of the day, even the most advanced moves come down to the same basic body movements. In our system, everyone does the first kata together, even Yon Dans. Basics are the foundation for everything and should be drilled and perfected over and over and over again. Even pro-golfers do basic drills in prep for competition. I don't think you can ever over-do kihon.

That said, it isn't your school, so you need to quietly go along with your Shihan. Thank him for the correction and try to bring your curriculum to be in line with his desires. Take what you learn from him good and bad and then apply those lessons to your school when/if you open one.

[Rateh]

One thing to remember is that you don't have to do everything every class. They have their whole lives to perfect their basics. A good way to move through the basics effectively is to focus on one area or one aspect. For example do only kicks that day, then you have plenty of time to work on the techniques without rushing, and still move on to more curriculum. Or maybe you spend the basics portion of class working on hip action. Focusing on one aspect at a time will help the students focus better on perfecting that specific aspect without being distracted by trying to get everything right. This is especially helpful for beginners who get overwhelmed with all of the things they are doing wrong. Alternatively, if you have a small class, then have each student work on a specific area. For example, as you are going through basics you might notice that one of the students isn't chambering their back hand properly, so throughout basics just focus on correcting that one thing for them.

As I said, just remember that they have forever to get perfect, if we focus on everything every day the students would never leave! So pick and choose what you want to do for that particular day, and stick to it.

Bonus, if you are working on one aspect through basics, continue focusing on that same aspect for forms, sparring, self defense, etc (whatever else you work on for that class). This will help re-inforce the message.

Good luck!

[ninjanurse]

Rateh has fine advice here! You don't have to cover all the basics every class-pick one concept and apply it to a few basics each day.

[DWx]

Rateh's advice is great. Basics are so very important but it can be a bit overwhelming to be corrected on tons of stuff in one class - even if it needs correcting! Beginner or advanced student, its tough to be doing a technique and having to think "I need to do this and this and this...". You might see better improvement if you just focus on say the the hip action for one class until they've done enough reps so that the movement becomes subconscious then work on something else.

Also as much as basics are good, sometimes it takes some partner work, sparring or kata to make things click and for a student to have that "oh yeah!" moment of clarity.