How many people in your school?

[Aikikitty]

Hey,

My dojo is pretty small (both in size of the room and by the number of people) and that seems to be the norm with the popular Tae Kwon Do and Karate places around here. I have heard of maybe one or two large Aikido dojos in North America but are the majority of Aikido dojos relatively small like mine? I'm curious to know how many students of various ranks and instructors regularly attend your dojo. How many male/female. Also, how often do new students come in and stick with it?

My dojo has a total of 10 or 11 people but classes are always much smaller than that as not everyone is usually there at the same time! My mom and I are the only women. 4 of those people are Blackbelts who come pretty regularly (1 is Sandan and another is Nidan and I THINK the others are shodan) and we also have 2 others who have either recently moved or has work schedule conflicts and rarely comes.

We also have one person who is a 2nd kyu and my mom and I are two out of the three people who are 3rd kyu. There is one other person (a multiple black belt in Tae Kwon Do) who has come for a couple of years but has never wished to test. We have had 2 other of 3rd kyu level who have either moved or quit from knee problems.

Currently we have 1 beginner (he probably has only come for 6 classes so far) but most beginners we get are maybe 1 or 2 people and it's rare and far between and they rarely last long. A running joke in our dojo is that as soon as a beginner gets a copy of the Aikido info (techniques, rules, etc.) they never come back again. Usually they don't stick because either they don't like being sore, don't like learning to roll, schedual conflicts, or they find out how long it takes to before you get "good" at Aikido and they go to a different art. Someone told me that I'm probably 1 out of possibly every 100 people (maybe less than that) to actually stick with Aikido for this long (nearly 4 years) as most people don't last. Do you think that's true? How often do your beginners "stick with it" at your dojo?

Robyn :asian:

 

[theletch1]

Our adult class has about 20 students. There is a core group of around 12 that are there all the time. The dojo itself is rather small, much longer than it is wide. When we start doing techs that require a throw everyone starts shifting around to make room and then we'll kind of watch when the pair to either side throws and time our throw to that. This dojo is only 1 1/2 years old. The old one was even smaller but as soon as the move was made there was a huge influx of students and of that dozen or so most have actually stayed with it for the last year or so. If someone is gonna drop from our school they'll normally do so the first couple of months. Once they make it past the first couple months they realize that everyone there is still learning no matter what the rank and just fall into the routine. Those that don't stay leave for one of two reasons...they get frustrated that aikido takes so long to get the hang of or they leave because the pain in their wrists, forearms and elbows is too much to handle.

 

[Shogun]

Depending on the day, and class type, there is between 5 and 25 people at the Dojo I attend. The basics class has 2-9 people.
My Ninjutsu class is around 8-10 permanents, and usually about 1-3 new people every other week. it is held in an Aikido Dojo after the Aikidoka leave, and it isnt huge, so when too many people show up, it gets a little crowded.
the other Ninjutsu school in my area is held in a school classroom, and they have 1-6 permanent people, so its pretty small.

 

[buddah_belly]

Some days I'm the only student, sometimes we have as many seven at once. Usually it's around five though. As far as total "enrollment" we have around 12 with about three or four others who pop in every few months or so.

The only blackbelt we have is our Sensei. There's two orange belt guys (4th or 3rd kyu, I'm not sure), one white belt guy (he's gonna test pretty soon though), the rest of us are yellow belts (6th kyu)...four of us will test next month for 5th kyu (no color change...Sensei refers to it as our "midterm exam")...Yes we have a colored belt system because people in the West like having colored belts and so the new people know who to look to for help...

We have new people in and out on a pretty regular basis...I think that Aikido has a way of weeding people out on it's own. It looks cool...until you try to do it.

 

[Shogun]

I don't know why people criticize color belts in Aikido. We personally dont use them but for this reason:

having colored belts and so the new people know who to look to for help...

Its great, especially for new people.

I study an older form of Aiki , not quite Koryu, but still old. It takes about 1-2 years to reach 5th Kyu, and about 1-3 years for each additional Kyu rank. so at 5th Kyu, we wear Hakama to symbolize experience. It helps but it is different from most Aiki (do or Jutsu) so.....

 

[Aikikitty]

Thanks to everyone who has replied so far! :asian:

We don't use the color belt system in my dojo but I agree that it would be helpful for new people. About a month ago, a new guy came in and he saw me and the other non-blackbelt students wearing our white belts (90% of the time I wear my hakama) so he assumed we were all beginners too (we'll always will be "beginners" won't we ). We finally told him our ranks so he'd know he wasn't being partnered with someone who was as clueless about the techniques as he was.

That's true too about Aikido having it's way for weeding people out. Sure the techniques look effortless and simple until you start doing it and realize how imensly complex it is. And then it has to be JUST SO for it to work most of the time! Remember keep extension, stay in your center, move off-line, timing, distance, balance, blending, breathing!!! AAAAHHHH! I love it though!

Last night, a co-worker of one of my senseis came and tried it out. We usually spend 5-10 minutes showing beginners how to roll from the low position (or at least how to sit down and roll back and slap the mat) so they'll know how to go down when it's there turn to be uke. Unfortunatly, in the few minutes of class this guy injured his schoulder from crashing on a roll.

He was sore all through the rest of the class and I'd be surprised if we see him again.

Robyn

 

[Yari]

I would say that we are about 20 people in our dojo, but on average we are 5 -8 people in advance classes.

I dont mind people using colored blets, but I likethe idea of everbody having the same "color". It's kind of mental : We all are just starting approach.

/yari

 

[MisterMike]

We're not an "Aikido" school per say, but all 3 students show up none-the-less.

Small schools do have their advantages

 

[TimoS]

Our club is kind of special case, because it is meant only for employees of our company. The number of people who start in our karate club number anything from 20 - 60 (we've been in existance only for about three years now). Back when I started, there were quite many people, but from those there are only about 10 who train more or less regularly left (only 3 or 4 who attend at least twice weekly). No black belts that have started training in our club, although we have one 3rd and one 4th degree black belts, but they've received most of their training in sensei's own club. There are 5 of us at 1. kyu at the moment, so we're the highest ranking students who've been training in our club from almost the beginning. Sensei himself is 6. dan and as such, the highest ranking teacher in our style in Finland.
As for beginners, we usually take beginners only once a year around September, but if people have training in other styles, we do welcome them even later.
Currently I think there are about 40 paid members for this year, but since this a company club, therefore our employer subsidizes our training and therefore we can keep the membership fee extremely low (so there are people who have paid the fee eventhough they don't with us all). A typical class has about 20 people present from beginners to 1. kyu.
Oh yeah, and one more thing. About the colour belts: as far as our club is concerned, there are only two belt colours, white and black (and quite often only white, since sensei also uses white on occasion)

 

[Littledragon]

Hey,

My dojo is pretty small (both in size of the room and by the number of people) and that seems to be the norm with the popular Tae Kwon Do and Karate places around here. I have heard of maybe one or two large Aikido dojos in North America but are the majority of Aikido dojos relatively small like mine? I'm curious to know how many students of various ranks and instructors regularly attend your dojo. How many male/female. Also, how often do new students come in and stick with it?

My dojo has a total of 10 or 11 people but classes are always much smaller than that as not everyone is usually there at the same time! My mom and I are the only women. 4 of those people are Blackbelts who come pretty regularly (1 is Sandan and another is Nidan and I THINK the others are shodan) and we also have 2 others who have either recently moved or has work schedule conflicts and rarely comes.

We also have one person who is a 2nd kyu and my mom and I are two out of the three people who are 3rd kyu. There is one other person (a multiple black belt in Tae Kwon Do) who has come for a couple of years but has never wished to test. We have had 2 other of 3rd kyu level who have either moved or quit from knee problems.

Currently we have 1 beginner (he probably has only come for 6 classes so far) but most beginners we get are maybe 1 or 2 people and it's rare and far between and they rarely last long. A running joke in our dojo is that as soon as a beginner gets a copy of the Aikido info (techniques, rules, etc.) they never come back again. Usually they don't stick because either they don't like being sore, don't like learning to roll, schedual conflicts, or they find out how long it takes to before you get "good" at Aikido and they go to a different art. Someone told me that I'm probably 1 out of possibly every 100 people (maybe less than that) to actually stick with Aikido for this long (nearly 4 years) as most people don't last. Do you think that's true? How often do your beginners "stick with it" at your dojo?

Robyn :asian:

In the advanced level Aikido class there are about 10 students.

My Tae Kwon Do school on the other hand has over 200 students I believe.