One of my pet peeves is walking into a martial arts class that is taught by an instructor who just teaches whatever they feel like teaching that day.
Even though classes taught like this can often be fun and result in a some surprises, I personally prefer training in classes that follow a specific curriculum. The reason is simply that I'm a goal-oriented person, and I'd hazard a guess to say that most of your students are the same way.
This reveals one of the key reasons why it's so important to have an organized curriculum for your school. Why? The majority of people who walk in your front door like to be led, and they like it even more when they know where they're being led to.
So, today we're going to talk about having clear and transparent training goals, and translating that into your written curriculum.
What's the optimal desired outcome for your students? Well, from their perspectives it's going to vary from student to student, as each is going to come to your program with slightly different goals and needs.
However, it's your job as their instructor to set overarching goals for each class, program, and level, ensuring that each student's individual goals and needs can be met while pursuing the overarching goals you've set.
- Developing self-defense skills -
- Learning competitive skills and tactics -
- Achieving greater physical fitness -
- Passing down an art in its unaltered form -
- Developing intangible attributes like greater confidence, improved mental focus, and better self-control -
These are all just examples, but they are common goals that martial arts instructors may have for their curricula. What you have to decide before you determine your curriculum is what goals are of primary significance to you and your school.
For example, if you run a traditional school passing along the art might be of a primary significance. So, in that case your curriculum would focus on teaching the techniques of your style and ensuring technical proficiency is demonstrated by each student before they move on to the next rank, level, or class.
On the other hand, you might want to run a school that is focused on competition. Therefore, your curriculum would probably revolve around sparring and sparring-type drills that are useful for developing winning competitors.
I'm sure you can see how the goals you set for your school will have a tremendous impact on how you shape and define your curriculum. Ultimately, in setting goals for your students and curriculum you are determining how they will spend the bulk of their training time in class.
So, make certain that you are comfortable with the goals and areas you wish to focus on in your curriculum. Not only will this determine what you'll be teaching in class, it will also set the tone and identity for your entire school. Choose wisely.
BELT RANKS AND EXPERIENCE LEVELS
Typically an instructor will divide their curriculum and classes into either beginning and advanced students, or beginning, intermediate, and advanced students. This is simply to make it more convenient for you as the instructor, allowing you to focus on a smaller segment of your curriculum in each class.
Also, it's to keep the beginners from feeling frustrated because they are being exposed to material that is too advanced too soon, and to keep the advanced students from getting bored from having to cover material they are already quite familiar with.
To avoid these issues, you'll want to divide your curriculum up by either rank or time and experience in training, designating which techniques will be taught to beginners and which will be taught in your advanced classes.
There are no hard and fast rules for this; however, it would be wise to determine what constitutes the foundational techniques of your system, and to introduce those as early in your curriculum as possible. Obviously, this is common sense, but it still bears mentioning.
Another consideration is when you'll introduce sparring to your students. Many instructors have found that it's best to introduce sparring only after students have gained a firm grasp of the basics. Yet another strategy is to introduce sparring principles via limited parameter sparring drills and games.
Keep in mind that sparring can be very stressful to the new student. Therefore it makes sense to gradually expose them to the concepts and practice of sparring over time. This is both to make them more comfortable with the idea of sparring as well as to allow them time to develop basic skills that will lead to their success in the ring.
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
Class room management is a huge issue for owners of growing schools. Remember that the more varied the skills levels of students in each class, the more complex that curriculum delivery becomes.
To simplify your job as an instructor, it's best to divide your students intro groups that allow you to parse your curriculum into smaller chunks. Your goal in doing so should be to divide your curriculum and classes in such a way that every student in each class is being introduced to material at their level.
In addition, it is wise to organize your curriculum so that you are teaching the entire class the same lessons and techniques at the same time. This is especially relevant to schools that teach forms as part of their curriculum.
Few things are more challenging than trying to run two or three groups of students in the same class who are all doing different forms at the same time. If you want to give your students and onlookers the impression that you are failing to provide each student with sufficient attention, go ahead an attempt to teach your classes in this manner.
However, if you want to avoid these issues one of the best ways to organize your curriculum is by using a technique rotation. Often referred to as a rotating curriculum, this concept involves nothing more than teaching every student at every level the same techniques from your curriculum in a sequential sequence that repeats at regular intervals.
The concept can be confusing if you've never experienced it, but once you implement it successfully it makes your job as an instructor a whole lot easier. If you want more information on how to organize your curriculum using a technique rotation, I've written a
short report on the topic that is available on Amazon.
That wraps up today's email message. Tomorrow I'm going to discuss the relationship between class scheduling and curriculum design, and how that can have a huge impact on your school's growth.
