advice

[oftheherd1]

(Your further advanced student has he studied Aikido previously? and if so what style ?) Yes he did an Iwama style but a good few years ago and didn't go for long, I've had him for nearly 12 months now.

If you are a good teacher and you older student is a good student (both assumed), he should be able to teach basics to brand new students. In fact, he should learn about as much from teaching as he learns from being taught.

 

[now disabled]

I'm guessing you are not from the Iwama school lol,

Which school are you teaching ?

 

[Antighsiothail]

(Which school are you teaching ?) Shin Shin Toitsu ( KI Aikido)

 

[ShortBridge]

The struggle is real. I limit my class size and have had no attrition in years, so I don't turn over that much, but I have expanded a bit, so I have people sufficiently more experienced than others in the same class.

1) You just have to deal with giving them each what they need. It's a lot harder to run a class that way, but unless you want different classes for different levels of student, you have to do it. You could offer the senior student some extra time for private training or just split them up.

2) The senior student will have to drill basics a bit. This feels like a drag to him, but it is actually good for him (or her) up to point. The junior students will conversely be likely to get pushed ahead of their readiness more quickly. This may feel like a win for them and it could be to some degree, but I noticed that my 2nd batch of students were lacking some things that my first was not. When I thought about it, I rushed them through some of the rudiments.

If you haven't already, I would suggest thinking ahead and planning your growth. How big do you want to be and by when? It will help you plan. If this is as big as you want to be, it will work itself out pretty soon, but if you add new people a few times a year, you'll always have these gaps to manage around.

As my dad would say "these are good problems to have".

 

[now disabled]

(Which school are you teaching ?) Shin Shin Toitsu ( KI Aikido)

If I'm ever up that way I'll give you a shout ..

 

[Antighsiothail]

If I'm ever up that way I'll give you a shout ..

I'm a long way north, but you would be welcome.

 

[Antighsiothail]

Gets more complicated, just had a couple join me and they've brought 3 children with them. Twins I think are about 7 and the other one about 9, never had to deal with children before argghhhh. Got to try to work out how to keep the adults going and how to keep the kids interested!

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Gets more complicated, just had a couple join me and they've brought 3 children with them. Twins I think are about 7 and the other one about 9, never had to deal with children before argghhhh. Got to try to work out how to keep the adults going and how to keep the kids interested!

I tihnk you may be accidentally stumbling into opening up a school

 

[Antighsiothail]

I tihnk you may be accidentally stumbling into opening up a school

I think you may well be right!

 

[wab25]

If I read this right, your advanced student is 10 months ahead of the beginners? Thats not a big difference. It should be well worth his time to work with other people, instead of keeping him separate. You also learn a lot trying to make your technique work on someone who has not yet learned "when to fall down now."

I have been studying my art for just over 20 years now. However, senior instructors can always find many things for me to work on, in our first kata / technique. (and its a very simple technique) So, when teaching people of different levels, they can all do the same thing, but focus on different parts. Some will be working on the gross motor movements, while others may be fine tuning different parts, others may be taking the technique in slightly different directions or from different setups. Or you might have different lengths of steps. Beginners are doing a wrist lock, intermediate are doing wrist lock into take down, advanced are doing wrist lock to take down to pin. With 4-5 students, work in a line, have one guy do his level on all the others, then switch the guy doing the technique. There are many ways for different level students to work on different things, with the same kata/technique. And its not bad for the beginners to see and or feel the advanced version, as long as they are ready for the fall.

 

[kunetao]

Coming from a small school my old master was a pro at this kind of situation. We were all shown one move and then the master would move around the room and make adjustments and the more advanced students would have things added to the moves. For example If we were doing some attack parry combo the newer students worked on just that where as the advanced students would add other attacks and or takedowns.