Classes

[crash]

How are your classes scheduled?. 1 hour per night? 2 hours? is sparring done as part of class normally or do you have a separate sparring class once a week. do you have a separate beginners class for underbelts? (green belt and below as an example). just curious how some other Dojo's are ran. an example of class schedule like 6-6:45 beginners, 7-745 adult advanced, 8-9 wednesdays sparring. and if you had on mondays and fridays a HIIT (high intensity interval training) type training class/workout would you attend? (for some of the people who also split gym training with martial arts). this dousnt include childrens classes, just interested in adult classes and how others may be ran, and what you may think would make them better or what could be added to the standard martial arts class.

[Wastelander]

COVID has made this a complicated situation, because I was supposed to open for group classes in April of 2020, but that obviously didn't happen, and I've only been running private lessons since then.

My intent, however, is to run 45 minute classes for children (4:30-5:15pm) and 90 minute classes for adults (5:30-7pm), 3 times per week. I will be keeping classes small, for a while, as COVID lost me my chance at a commercial space and I'm teaching out of my home dojo, but that means that I don't really have to worry about breaking up classes by level. I also intend to incorporate sparring into most sessions, with the occasional session being fully-focused on sparring. Of course, the types of sparring vary.

[crash]

COVID has made this a complicated situation, because I was supposed to open for group classes in April of 2020, but that obviously didn't happen, and I've only been running private lessons since then.

My intent, however, is to run 45 minute classes for children (4:30-5:15pm) and 90 minute classes for adults (5:30-7pm), 3 times per week. I will be keeping classes small, for a while, as COVID lost me my chance at a commercial space and I'm teaching out of my home dojo, but that means that I don't really have to worry about breaking up classes by level. I also intend to incorporate sparring into most sessions, with the occasional session being fully-focused on sparring. Of course, the types of sparring vary.

interesting, and thanks for the comment. yes covid and the shutdown was hard. I am in kind of the same boat as you, was getting everything ready to jump in full bore and had to put it on hold for a minute. hoping now is the time to start getting it all back on track....now everything is back up and running and im just wondering what could be done to expand a little as far as variety and quality of class, and what some people might would like added to add a little extra to the routine. are you still hoping to move into a commercial bldg and build a larger class base?, or is the home location enough? has having adult classes at 5:30 been convenient? I always had a hard time getting adults in that early due to work schedules and such?..... thank you and good luck with your plans

[bushido_man96]

We don't have many adults right now, so we are just running mixed classes 4 times per week, for an hour each. On Monday night after mixed class is Black Belt Class for an hour. Wednesday after the mixed class is a Kicking Class for an hour. We also have Little Lions classes for 30 minutes prior to the mixed classes. These tend to be our largest classes right now.

[crash]

We don't have many adults right now, so we are just running mixed classes 4 times per week, for an hour each. On Monday night after mixed class is Black Belt Class for an hour. Wednesday after the mixed class is a Kicking Class for an hour. We also have Little Lions classes for 30 minutes prior to the mixed classes. These tend to be our largest classes right now.

thanks Bushido_man for the reply, are you in a commercial Dojo? why do you not have many adults? covid/shutdown?, area?, (rural versus city), do the gyms in your area have full programs/memberships?.....that is why i asked if anyone had incorporated HIIT type classes/programs into their curriculum, there are a few 9 rounds type gyms in my area that keep large memberships, as well as full scale gyms. just brainstorming ideas here that could boost memberships. a lot of people get into the martial arts just for the exercise, cardio, weight loss, etc... what are some ways we could maybe keep people interested and returning even after the goal of blackbelt is reached. with the wave of planet fitness and workout anytime type establishments popping up everywhere at 20.00 a month it is getting tougher to compete and draw in customers. especially adults. who once they realize that these gyms arent what they seek will then go to gyms like 9 rounds or crossfit for 100 plus per month. how do we become the middleman, so to speak, and get some of this group of people interested. how do we market in a new way yet still retain the core of what we teach.

[Wastelander]

COVID has made this a complicated situation, because I was supposed to open for group classes in April of 2020, but that obviously didn't happen, and I've only been running private lessons since then.

My intent, however, is to run 45 minute classes for children (4:30-5:15pm) and 90 minute classes for adults (5:30-7pm), 3 times per week. I will be keeping classes small, for a while, as COVID lost me my chance at a commercial space and I'm teaching out of my home dojo, but that means that I don't really have to worry about breaking up classes by level. I also intend to incorporate sparring into most sessions, with the occasional session being fully-focused on sparring. Of course, the types of sparring vary.

interesting, and thanks for the comment. yes covid and the shutdown was hard. I am in kind of the same boat as you, was getting everything ready to jump in full bore and had to put it on hold for a minute. hoping now is the time to start getting it all back on track....now everything is back up and running and im just wondering what could be done to expand a little as far as variety and quality of class, and what some people might would like added to add a little extra to the routine. are you still hoping to move into a commercial bldg and build a larger class base?, or is the home location enough? has having adult classes at 5:30 been convenient? I always had a hard time getting adults in that early due to work schedules and such?..... thank you and good luck with your plans

Well, I definitely intend to eventually move into a commercial building, but I figure I will start up the group classes in my home dojo, first, and once I outgrow that, upgrade. Private lessons at 5:30 or 6pm have certainly been my most popular times for adults and older teens, so it stands to reason that group classes at those times would fit, as well.

When I have run group classes, in the past, I have always started with warm-ups that progressively become actual short workouts. For example; start with simple mobility warm-ups, and maybe some jumping jacks or jogging laps, then some groundwork like bridging, shrimping, or sit-outs, then calisthenics like push-ups, sit-ups, or lunges, then something a bit more intense, like using hojo undo kigu (supplementary training tools), sprinting, or bagwork. Sometimes, I would also throw in tactile sensitivity drills, as well, or body conditioning, if the right people were in class.

After that, I generally have them work a bit of solo kata. Occasionally, the class would be focused on working through all the kata that people know, but I tend to prefer having them work just whichever kata I'm going to be pulling material from in that class. Once we've gone through the kata a couple times, to make sure people are getting their structure and mechanics down, I have them pair up to work drills based on practical applications of movements from the kata they were just working. Sometimes, I would have them work the applications off of realistic attacks, and sometimes I would have them work off of platform drills, like kakie, parry-pass, block-pass-check/hubud-lubud, or the 360 Defense drill.

Then, we're set for some type of sparring. I try to mix this up pretty regularly, because it's important to get a well-rounded sparring experience, and I find that it helps keep people from trying to just get good at sparring for the sake of sparring, instead of using it as a tool for learning and testing. Kakedameshi, "Bully Sparring," kickboxing-style, MMA-style, grappling, grappler vs striker, puncher vs kicker, someone secretly has a training knife, 2 vs 1, self-defense scenarios, etc.

I have gotten some complaints that my classes are too rough, on occasion, but the majority of my adult students have been happy with them, and boredom is very rarely an issue. Based on student questions, I do occasionally delve into karate history, or finer points on how to apply certain techniques and why, and I'm sure that's boring for some, but it's good to squeeze some of that in, anyway, and nobody has actually complained about it.

[bushido_man96]

We don't have many adults right now, so we are just running mixed classes 4 times per week, for an hour each. On Monday night after mixed class is Black Belt Class for an hour. Wednesday after the mixed class is a Kicking Class for an hour. We also have Little Lions classes for 30 minutes prior to the mixed classes. These tend to be our largest classes right now.

thanks Bushido_man for the reply, are you in a commercial Dojo? why do you not have many adults? covid/shutdown?, area?, (rural versus city), do the gyms in your area have full programs/memberships?.....that is why i asked if anyone had incorporated HIIT type classes/programs into their curriculum, there are a few 9 rounds type gyms in my area that keep large memberships, as well as full scale gyms. just brainstorming ideas here that could boost memberships. a lot of people get into the martial arts just for the exercise, cardio, weight loss, etc... what are some ways we could maybe keep people interested and returning even after the goal of blackbelt is reached. with the wave of planet fitness and workout anytime type establishments popping up everywhere at 20.00 a month it is getting tougher to compete and draw in customers. especially adults. who once they realize that these gyms arent what they seek will then go to gyms like 9 rounds or crossfit for 100 plus per month. how do we become the middleman, so to speak, and get some of this group of people interested. how do we market in a new way yet still retain the core of what we teach.

I don't know that I'd call it a commercial dojang. When covid hit and everyone thought it was wise to force business to shut down, we lost a lot of our student body. Quite a few didn't come back. I'm guessing they were on the fence about it anyway, and covid provided a convenient excuse to walk away, and lasted long enough to justify not coming back. We also had a change in CI/school owner, which probably caused some of the drop off, too.

Funnily enough, our school is in a 24-hour gym (not a national chain though), and the owner has leased floor space for some aerobic classes of some type. However, they aren't MA affiliated courses (like Tae-Bo for example).

I live in a fair-sized city, about 21,000, but in a pretty rural area. We usually get lots of kids signed up, but when they starting getting older, lots of them trail off to school sports. I don't have a problem with this, it just is what it is. We used to have a better adult standing, and hope for it to start coming back. There was a time when our TKD class was one of a few courses available for a PE credit at the local university, but that was dropped about 10 years ago, and we lost a nice inflow of adult students, even if was just for a quarter at a time, and we'd usually have a few that stuck around. I've heard we are getting back into the college credit business, but I don't think the requirement level has changed. So we'll see what happens.

[crash]

We don't have many adults right now, so we are just running mixed classes 4 times per week, for an hour each. On Monday night after mixed class is Black Belt Class for an hour. Wednesday after the mixed class is a Kicking Class for an hour. We also have Little Lions classes for 30 minutes prior to the mixed classes. These tend to be our largest classes right now.

thanks Bushido_man for the reply, are you in a commercial Dojo? why do you not have many adults? covid/shutdown?, area?, (rural versus city), do the gyms in your area have full programs/memberships?.....that is why i asked if anyone had incorporated HIIT type classes/programs into their curriculum, there are a few 9 rounds type gyms in my area that keep large memberships, as well as full scale gyms. just brainstorming ideas here that could boost memberships. a lot of people get into the martial arts just for the exercise, cardio, weight loss, etc... what are some ways we could maybe keep people interested and returning even after the goal of blackbelt is reached. with the wave of planet fitness and workout anytime type establishments popping up everywhere at 20.00 a month it is getting tougher to compete and draw in customers. especially adults. who once they realize that these gyms arent what they seek will then go to gyms like 9 rounds or crossfit for 100 plus per month. how do we become the middleman, so to speak, and get some of this group of people interested. how do we market in a new way yet still retain the core of what we teach.

I don't know that I'd call it a commercial dojang. When covid hit and everyone thought it was wise to force business to shut down, we lost a lot of our student body. Quite a few didn't come back. I'm guessing they were on the fence about it anyway, and covid provided a convenient excuse to walk away, and lasted long enough to justify not coming back. We also had a change in CI/school owner, which probably caused some of the drop off, too.

Funnily enough, our school is in a 24-hour gym (not a national chain though), and the owner has leased floor space for some aerobic classes of some type. However, they aren't MA affiliated courses (like Tae-Bo for example).

I live in a fair-sized city, about 21,000, but in a pretty rural area. We usually get lots of kids signed up, but when they starting getting older, lots of them trail off to school sports. I don't have a problem with this, it just is what it is. We used to have a better adult standing, and hope for it to start coming back. There was a time when our TKD class was one of a few courses available for a PE credit at the local university, but that was dropped about 10 years ago, and we lost a nice inflow of adult students, even if was just for a quarter at a time, and we'd usually have a few that stuck around. I've heard we are getting back into the college credit business, but I don't think the requirement level has changed. So we'll see what happens.

The shutdown was hard on a lot of small businesses, for the last couple of months it seemed that maybe that was going to straighten out and return to normal, but now with the economy doing what it is doing i just dont know, current members of gym type facilities will hang in as long as possible but getting new people involved may be a little harder than past times. i had a friend who ran his dojo out of a gym for a while, a few years actually, until it changed hands and the new owners werent interested in renting space. they wanted an all, in house, hands on type business, he finally went the strip mall route and did well until retiring. the college deal sounds good though and hopefully you all can get university students back again on a regular basis. the local college in our city has a continuing education dept for night classes that the county residents can utilize. getting in and teaching classes like that can be a good way to get students also. not sure if your college has that type of dept./classes available to your comunity but it may be worth looking into.

[bushido_man96]

I'm lucky here in that the gym owner and school owner are the same people; don't have to worry about giving up the space. We shall see how things go moving forward into the next college semester.

[crash]

I'm lucky here in that the gym owner and school owner are the same people; don't have to worry about giving up the space. We shall see how things go moving forward into the next college semester.

thats is cool, theres a dojo near me that i would workout in from time to time that is like that, gym and dojo combination, owner is a great guy. there is a lot of possibilities if done right. has given me many ideas for what type of setup and direction i would like to go in. im not looking to go the full gym route but something more along the lines of a full dojo with some gym equipment and personal training/high intensity training added in. thanks for sharing the info and good luck with the recruiting.