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How long do you spend on a topic?
6 year(s) ago • 2740 views • 4 replies
DBBlack beltVerified
6 year(s) ago
Part of the discussion in the thread about Adult Green Belts has turned toward how often various material is covered in classes. For example, your gym may have one technique that is covered all week, or one position that is covered all month, or even larger cycles to make sure the content is all gotten through.
Coaches - how do you like to structure what to cover and why?
Students - what format do you like for cycle structures? Are there things you've found work better or worse for your learning?
As an example, we tend to focus on one position for 4-6 weeks (roughly one month), and cycle through the major positions so that students in normal classes would see a given position roughly two months per year for specific lessons. Within that month time each week tends to focus on a specific set of techniques or aspect of that position, so the first week may focus on one style of attacks for the person on top, the second week may be a second form of attacks for the person on top, the third week may be defenses and escapes for the person on bottom, and the fourth week would be transitions to the next position we'll cover. In a given week the classes are taught by up to 4 different instructors each showing their material for that specific topic so no two classes tend to be identical in material, but a given technique may be shown multiple times if multiple coaches favor it. This is more about taking sufficient time to explore the specific techniques grouped by these positions.
For a fundamentals class, we only have one per week so it just covers one position each class in a repeating cycle of 6 positions (back, mount, side, half guard, guard, standing). This has been helpful for newer folks so they don't need to wait 4-6 months to see what to do in half guard if they started at the tail end of a half guard month.
Coaches - how do you like to structure what to cover and why?
Students - what format do you like for cycle structures? Are there things you've found work better or worse for your learning?
As an example, we tend to focus on one position for 4-6 weeks (roughly one month), and cycle through the major positions so that students in normal classes would see a given position roughly two months per year for specific lessons. Within that month time each week tends to focus on a specific set of techniques or aspect of that position, so the first week may focus on one style of attacks for the person on top, the second week may be a second form of attacks for the person on top, the third week may be defenses and escapes for the person on bottom, and the fourth week would be transitions to the next position we'll cover. In a given week the classes are taught by up to 4 different instructors each showing their material for that specific topic so no two classes tend to be identical in material, but a given technique may be shown multiple times if multiple coaches favor it. This is more about taking sufficient time to explore the specific techniques grouped by these positions.
For a fundamentals class, we only have one per week so it just covers one position each class in a repeating cycle of 6 positions (back, mount, side, half guard, guard, standing). This has been helpful for newer folks so they don't need to wait 4-6 months to see what to do in half guard if they started at the tail end of a half guard month.
DCBlack beltVerified
6 year(s) ago
I have always appreciated spending a chunck of time in as particular topic, the reason I spend a month, actually 3 weeks with an open mat/ questions week, is threefold:
It's easy to keep a track of.
I start at the beginning of the months and I know by the end of the month I should have asked the student what they want the next focus to be.
People get familiar with the subject:
They have 3 weeks of varying levels of depth and different scenarios. I also recall the previous nights training before showing the next techniques so everything gets reinforced. The final week after all the positional sparring, there are undoubtedly questions or people just plain doing it wrong, I get a week to sort all this out with them.
It's long enough but not too long:
I never enjoyed 1 week on a subject, heck some people on do one night and only pull whatever they think of out of their arse. And, l find much more than a month and people get bored, not to mention I start to run out of shit or what I give them keeps leading to something else that we aren't covering.
Reality is it just easiest for me but I'm definitely interested what other students have to say, especially after starting to plan a rotational SDish entry and recap curriculum.
It's easy to keep a track of.
I start at the beginning of the months and I know by the end of the month I should have asked the student what they want the next focus to be.
People get familiar with the subject:
They have 3 weeks of varying levels of depth and different scenarios. I also recall the previous nights training before showing the next techniques so everything gets reinforced. The final week after all the positional sparring, there are undoubtedly questions or people just plain doing it wrong, I get a week to sort all this out with them.
It's long enough but not too long:
I never enjoyed 1 week on a subject, heck some people on do one night and only pull whatever they think of out of their arse. And, l find much more than a month and people get bored, not to mention I start to run out of shit or what I give them keeps leading to something else that we aren't covering.
Reality is it just easiest for me but I'm definitely interested what other students have to say, especially after starting to plan a rotational SDish entry and recap curriculum.
Edited 6 year(s) ago
JMBlack belt 2nd degreeVerified
6 year(s) ago
It depends on many other factors and I've been searching for 15 years and haven't found the perfect formula yet :)
FFBlack belt 2nd degreeVerified
6 year(s) ago
We just go with the flow, depending on the problems we recognise or the questions that arise.
![Slideyfoot [jun]](userimg/5e25cf311adfd.jpg){kind=small}
SJBlack belt 1st degreeVerified
6 year(s) ago
For example, your gym may have one technique that is covered all week, or one position that is covered all month, or even larger cycles to make sure the content is all gotten through. Coaches - how do you like to structure what to cover and why?
This feels like it would be a good question for the coaches subforum, but to answer on here, I teach 5 classes a week. Two of those are in the evening, with between 8 to 20 people on average, the other three are in the daytime, with much smaller numbers (anything from 1 to about 10 max). I use the daytime as preparation for the evening (I teach the same thing in both, spending longer in the daytime where I go for a more informal, loose format), with one daytime my spare 'mess about' lesson for anything I fancy covering.
E.g., if I see a cool video I want to try out. I'm considering changing my mess about class to a drills class once lockdown is over, so I can use the skills I've learned over the last few months, plus it gives the remote students a chance to continue (I've picked up a few of those, which is a really cool development. At the moment, all friends who already train at other gyms, but long term I'd like to try monetise it. Some super cheap rate, like £5 a month. Initially I'd be looking to just cover the cost of Zoom each month, so I'd only need to get three people to sign up for that ;D).
I cover one position each month in my classes, cycling between what I see as the six core positions: side control, back, mount, closed guard, half guard and open guard. I have a bunch of lessons I repeatedly teach, varying it up over the course of several years, always trying to add in at least a few new ones each month.
Within that month, I'll also cover subpositions (e.g., during side control month, I might look at knee on belly, or north-south, etc). There are certain classes I teach every single time that month comes up (guard retention, holding mount, basic guard recovery from side control, etc), but other than that, I'm flexible.
I have a general pattern for each week of the month: one week I'll look at maintaining, another I'll look at escaping (or the case of guard, passing), then on another I'll cover attacks. As there are usually four weeks in a month, sometimes almost five, that means I can vary up how long I spend depending what I want to cover. It also depends what I covered last time that month came up: e.g., if I did a lot of escapes the last time, then I'll focus more on attacks on maintaining this time.
E.g., if I see a cool video I want to try out. I'm considering changing my mess about class to a drills class once lockdown is over, so I can use the skills I've learned over the last few months, plus it gives the remote students a chance to continue (I've picked up a few of those, which is a really cool development. At the moment, all friends who already train at other gyms, but long term I'd like to try monetise it. Some super cheap rate, like £5 a month. Initially I'd be looking to just cover the cost of Zoom each month, so I'd only need to get three people to sign up for that ;D).
I cover one position each month in my classes, cycling between what I see as the six core positions: side control, back, mount, closed guard, half guard and open guard. I have a bunch of lessons I repeatedly teach, varying it up over the course of several years, always trying to add in at least a few new ones each month.
Within that month, I'll also cover subpositions (e.g., during side control month, I might look at knee on belly, or north-south, etc). There are certain classes I teach every single time that month comes up (guard retention, holding mount, basic guard recovery from side control, etc), but other than that, I'm flexible.
I have a general pattern for each week of the month: one week I'll look at maintaining, another I'll look at escaping (or the case of guard, passing), then on another I'll cover attacks. As there are usually four weeks in a month, sometimes almost five, that means I can vary up how long I spend depending what I want to cover. It also depends what I covered last time that month came up: e.g., if I did a lot of escapes the last time, then I'll focus more on attacks on maintaining this time.
