curriculum

[crash]

5 hours ago, sensei8 said:

When I read stations, I think of gyms and how they have stations where one goes from one equipment to another during circuit training, of which I’ve used at the gym but I don’t like that idea in my dojo.

its more like a boxing gyms stations, heavy bag, speed bad, push-ups, sit-ups, mt climbers, etc.... follows a 9-rounds type workout..... a mix of strength and cardio in a HIIT type format, two minutes each station, etc... not really anything new to the M.A's. back in the 80's it was common in sport karate training, heck, tai-bo was even a martial arts workout in its basic form, before it was watered down, given a name and fed to the public as a stand alone workout....lol.....

[crash]

4 hours ago, aurik said:

Our CI has several supplementary tools to change things up.  He has chi ishi (spirit stones) which he made which he uses for weight training during class.  In a similar vein, he has weighted jars, which he has students use during Sanchin kata to provide an upper body workout and work on gripping strength.  He has used exercise bands, where we hold each end in our hand with the band wrapped around our shoulders/upper back to provide resistance when striking in Sanchin.

As a general rule, his classes almost always follow the same format, first 30 minutes: warmups, accessory exercises, sanchin, kote kitae (body conditioning).  Next 45 minutes: focus area for the week, whether that's bunkai, two-person drills, self-defense techniques, throws/takedowns, cardio/weight training, etc.  Last 15 minutes: kata.  The 45 minutes in the middle is where he mixes things up to keep class interesting each week.

 

 

i usually followed a set class pattern.  time is also an issue with how classes are ran as much as style itself. i ran 2 hour classes, or 2 one hour classes actually. usually on wednesdays the second hour was sparring. the other four days was a 2 hour standard class. that was for advanced, green belt and above. and a one hour class for beginners. we did a lot similar to what you describe with dumbells.......i know a lot of places it is common to have 1 hour classes only and given the warm-ups and stretching leaves little time for anything extra...

[ryanryu]

I’m going to agree with crash on this one. If you are running a full-time, stand-alone dojo, these strength and conditioning classes seem like a very obvious thing to add to the schedule. Maybe you’ll need to develop your own skills to teach fitness classes like this, or hire a group fitness instructor to teach them, but I think any martial artist would benefit from a heavy bag workout, a punching mitts/padwork workout, HIIT, yoga, etc. etc. etc.

I don’t run a full-time dojo so the limited classes I have are focused specifically on the martial arts. Although even then, some sessions are more focused on conditioning and others are more focused on skill-building. There’s a mix, but it skews heavily towards skill-building.

I spent a few years regularly attending one of those boxing fitness clubs and I’d say at least half of the customers were the people who would’ve been training in a dojo 20 years ago. It was actually fascinating to see customers start, get some skill, then plateau, lose interest, and leave. They came for the workouts initially, but I think they would’ve stayed long term, say 3-4 years instead of 1-2, if the boxing fitness included more skill development. That development is something martial arts do really well.

So, from the “martial arts as a business” perspective, I think adding this type of stuff to the class schedule could be really effective.