# Thoughts, help, advice and support sought!



## Tez3 (Dec 22, 2007)

As some of you may be aware I only teach the children in my club TSD, the adults and myself train MMA but I'm hoping that's about to change. Mu instructor and I have come up with the idea of my starting and teaching a TSD class for adults.
My idea is have a beginners class only for people over 14. Beginners only for two reasons, firstly not to put people off coming as they think everyone in the class is an expert and secondly because I want a small class first off that I can concentrate on teaching properly. I have a 14 year old lad from the childrens class who is ready to move on but there is nowhere for him to continue TSD properly. I don't want to use him as an instructor but he's very mature and a _small _amount of teaching will give him a good boost as well as the fact he can demo the high kicks lol!.

We will use the syllabus we already use but I will go into far more detail for the adults, one thing I really want to do is go into the Bunkai and I plan to take them off to Iain Abernethy's seminars. I don't want empty 'going through the motions' hyungs.

I will only do point sparring as my instructor will come and take a sparring class when he can probably at least once a month. Sparring is an emotive subject I've found! One of the 'accusations', if you like, levelled against TMA is that it isn't realistic and yet a lot of people are put off from doing a martial art because they think the sparring is too 'rough'! To me you really must be able to fight, the reasons why can be left to personal choice, ie for competition, self defence etc. I do understand though, those who want to do just kata and linework so I'm hoping that I can teach them all to point spar successfully and those that want to really go for it can in the sparring class while those who find that too much won't be overwhelmed and can miss it. I'm hoping though that they will gain confidence and give the sparring class a go at least once.
Though if no one wants to do more than points we'll have to do just points I suppose in the sparring class! 
Self defence is something we won't compromise on though and the techniques we teach are the tried and tested ones my instructor teaches and uses. I feel we'd be cheating students if we didn't show them the best techniques we can even if some may feel they are 'brutal'. I have read criticisms before of some SD techniques as not being 'gentlemanly or in the 'karate' spirit (as my instructor said wtf?). 

Where I think some of you may be  disapproving is the fact we do not beling to any association as far as TSD is concerned. We of course are insured up to the eyeballs lol but we dont have to conform to anyone elses rules. For the TSD class though I'm going to try very hard to keep it to what we discuss on here and I'm afraid the students will be told that TSD is not as it says in the books, 2000 years old! What I do hope is that they however get to train in the best way I can make it, it's a very big undertaking for me. I don't expect to train them up to black belts, due to our location people only stay in this area for 2-3 years then are posted, though I may get some civvies which would be good. I really want to be able to give them a good grounding in good, effective techniques.We won't be doing breaking which some may think we should. We will be doing some grappling though as the Bunkai to many kata/hyung call for this. My copy of Iain Abernethy's Applied Karate as well as my TSD book is being kept close to hand! 

Okay fire away but please be kind with your criticisms lol! seriously though I appreciate all input from people here, I know how little I don't know ( it does worry me that I will be teaching I'll admit) but I'm going to keep with what I know best.


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## Kacey (Dec 22, 2007)

Sounds like you've got a good handle on what you want to do, how to start, and where you're going - good luck, and keep us posted on how it goes!


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## theletch1 (Dec 22, 2007)

Tez3 said:


> I don't want to use him as an instructor but he's very mature and a _small _amount of teaching will give him a good boost as well as the fact he can demo the high kicks lol!.


 
One of the things that may help you feel better about allowing this lad to teach is my own experience teaching aikido.  I have found that my own technique has improved dramatically by teaching.  I'm forced to look at the technique from so many more angles than my own in order to teach it to different people that my appreciation of each tech has grown.  Often times when a student asks a question it'll kick off a thought process in my own head that will help me discover a deeper meaning to the tech.  While I agree that you won't want to toss him to the wolves as a full instructor I hope that my own experience as an instructor will help ease your mind as far as this young fellow is concerned.


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## Yossarian (Dec 23, 2007)

Sounds like it will be a good club, I like what you plan on doing with forms and SD. I wouldnt worry about not being part of an org, my own club was independent for the last couple of years. We recently found a great org that doesn't make you change what you do but gives you as much support and technical info as you want as well as having plenty of competitions. 

Personally I would get them sparring more than once a month and with your MMA experience you could show them different kinds of sparring. I have noticed that given a choice most adult students will at least have a go at hard sparring. Best of luck.


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## Tez3 (Dec 23, 2007)

Yossarian said:


> Sounds like it will be a good club, I like what you plan on doing with forms and SD. I wouldnt worry about not being part of an org, my own club was independent for the last couple of years. We recently found a great org that doesn't make you change what you do but gives you as much support and technical info as you want as well as having plenty of competitions.
> 
> Personally I would get them sparring more than once a month and with your MMA experience you could show them different kinds of sparring. I have noticed that given a choice most adult students will at least have a go at hard sparring. Best of luck.


 

Cheers everyone! the sparring is the bit that probably worries me the most! When I was at my previous club a lot of people didn't want to spar and that was only semi contact! I go across to a friends TKD club sometimes and he says they are the same, he finds it hard to persuade or motivate them when it comes to sparring. I'm hoping, I think, to bring real sparring in by stealth lol! I think it probably just needs a couple to do it and realise that as well as good training it's fun then the others will follow. I need though to get people in the class first lol! I'm hoping to start at the end of January beginning of February as I have to do a course for work in the first week of January so will be away for a week ( a week away from MT as well!)
I've been reading a lot on MT and it's heavily influencing what I do!


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