What is your class schedule?

[sensei8]

10am to 10 pm; 6 days a week!! Kyuodan Dojo

6am to 10pm; 6 days a week!! Shindokan Hombu

Both my dojo and the Hombu have the luxury of having been blessed with a large Student Body, and with the ability to have adjacent spaces beside the Main Dojo floor space.

While the adults have more of a flexible schedule than kids do because of school, the adults can either attend a wide choices of class schedules or not, based on their availability. And, the Main Dojo is a flex!! The Main Dojo, as to who occupies said classes at the Main Dojo alternates between all ages and all ranks; all want to be trained on the Main Dojo floor, but that's not possible.

The additional spaces allows me/us to run simultaneous classes of all types at the exact same times. One better know how to read the posted class schedule, which is subject to change, so that they know the when and where of each class for their particular needs.

While Shindokan is the core style of both dojo's, we don't just teach Shindokan!! We offer other styles of the MA outside of Shindokan; these schedules change quite often and continuously, and for that, those class schedules are posted in the largest and brightest possible way.

There's no classes on certain holidays!! There's no classes the week of any Testing Cycle, if any are scheduled!! Dojo will close on certain days for In-House parties/celebrations!! Whenever I'm not In-House, for both personal as well as professional reasons, the dojo remains open; I've/we've a large Instructors pool to cover any of my absences.

Private classes are held from open to close, for all ranks!! The ratio is 1:1, but no more than 1:3, from time to time; ranks can dictate that.

So, forgive me for not posting my/our class schedules; it's just not that simple. Even I shake my head when I read them, but, I understand them, whereas, an outsider wouldn't, and might run scared away as fast as their feet would allow. I/we tried to simplify our schedules, but, every draft still looks crazily confusing.

[JR 137]

Monday

6:30-7:15 - kids

7:30-8 - adults

Tuesday

6:30-7:15 - kata class

7:15-8 - adult green belts (4th kyu) and up

* This is basically one class, with the first half or so dedicated to kata and the second half is mostly sparring drills and sparring. After the kata portion, the few that don’t stay quickly bow out.

Wednesday

6-7 - adults

7-8 - black belts

Thursday

6-6:45 - kids

7-8 - adults

Saturday

9:30-10:30 - adults

10:45-11:30 - kids

It'd be great to be able to split kids from adults in my school... not enough students, though. I frequently end up being paired off with a 10 year old green belt to train (he's the only other green belt who currently attends.) They to have us practice throws on each other... Incredibly difficult! He weighs like 70lb, and is about 4" tall. I'm 5'10" and 185lb.

I do like the fact we have a total of 2 hours per session in our school, though.

Having to train with the kids would be a tough one for me. There’s a few kids who are close to the adult age (14-ish) and are very good for their age. My CI allows them to go to certain adult classes. They’re pretty much the kids are in-betweeners, so to speak; they’re way ahead of the kids group in terms of maturity and ability, yet they’re below the adults. Those kids are fine, and it lightens up the class a bit. There were a few kids who were invited to take some adult classes who didn’t stick around in the adult classes. I think it was too serious for them, so they decided to stay in the kids’ classes. Nothing wrong with that IMO.

If I were stuck in classes with the rest of the kids, I honestly don’t know how long I’d last. Sounds harsh, but there’s no other way I can say it. If there’s a mix and I wasn’t constantly paired up with kids, that would make it easier. Perhaps talk to your CI about it. I’m sure he/she would be willing to make some changes if possible. Perhaps he/she doesn’t know that it’s bothering you.

My former dojo split classes according to age AND rank. There were a few “all ranks” classes, but he tried his best to keep it every 3 ranks or so. He had the numbers to make that work. My current CI says he’d like to do that, but it’s pretty much impossible numbers-wise. And he does a great job managing the different ranks the way it is, so I don’t know how much a difference it would ultimately make anyway. Last week, we had every full belt rank from white belt all the way through 3rd dan, except brown belt*. I noticed it as we lined up. It was just business as usual; everyone got to do some of their rank specific stuff, and we all worked on basics like we always do.

We don’t have any adult brown belts currently. Hopefully that’ll change by the end of the month after my test

[sensei8]

For certain, whenever a dojo is brand new, the class schedule is quite simple: Beginner Children 5pm - 6pm...Beginner Adults 615pm - 8pm, for example!!

As the dojo grows, so will the game of class schedule roulette; creative class schedule 101.

Those were the days when everyone was a simple beginner!!

[bushido_man96]

Monday

6:30-7:15 - kids

7:30-8 - adults

Tuesday

6:30-7:15 - kata class

7:15-8 - adult green belts (4th kyu) and up

* This is basically one class, with the first half or so dedicated to kata and the second half is mostly sparring drills and sparring. After the kata portion, the few that don’t stay quickly bow out.

Wednesday

6-7 - adults

7-8 - black belts

Thursday

6-6:45 - kids

7-8 - adults

Saturday

9:30-10:30 - adults

10:45-11:30 - kids

It'd be great to be able to split kids from adults in my school... not enough students, though. I frequently end up being paired off with a 10 year old green belt to train (he's the only other green belt who currently attends.) They to have us practice throws on each other... Incredibly difficult! He weighs like 70lb, and is about 4" tall. I'm 5'10" and 185lb.

I do like the fact we have a total of 2 hours per session in our school, though.

I agree, and our school has bounced back and forth between the split classes in the past. Currently, our classes are mixed, but the instructor has made a slight adjustment in the class structure to help out a bit. For basics and forms, the class just runs as normal; basics all together and forms by rank. But when we line up for one-steps and sparring, adults face adults in the front of the room, and kids face kids by rank towards the back half of the room. Its nice, in that adults stay paired with adults and kids with kids, so there aren't a whole lot of mismatches.

[tallgeese]

MWF:

Kids 5-6

Fundamentas 6-7

Advanced 7-8

Open Mat 8-9

Tues/Thurs

No Gi 7-8

Open Mat 8-9

Sat

Self Defense BJJ 10-11

Open mat 11-12

Sunday

Open Mat 12-1