Sunday, November 27, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
My Thoughts and Reflections on 2011
Well folks, it's nearly end of 2011. It's been a year since we moved to our new venue. Overall, our classes have been fulfilling. When I mean fulfilling, that's because I believe we have achieved what we were set out to do. That is to create a non competitive training atmosphere. Minus the noise and politics of a typical martial arts school might encounter.
While our number is nothing to boast about, we had our fair share of students come and go. Sam has been teaching most of the classes with me filling in very occasionally. In the beginning, it was difficult for me to breakdown a technique and explain it at the same time. Not to mention that I had to develop the confidence to teach guys that had more experience than me! I felt it was way easier to just do the technique than to explain it. Over time, I devised methods to make the class more exciting. Eg, having the students draw lots for a certain submission attempt while their training partners would have to defend against it. With 5 mins per round, it gave them time to devise a plan to sub their partners or just go right for it from the start. I also focused on interval drills with 3 pairs on the ground doing different drills at the same time, eg. one pair passing/defending guard, another pair escaping/defending from side mount and another pair trying to establish back control escape/defense.
At the end of the class, it was always a pleasure to know that everyone enjoyed it and most importantly, no one was injured. If there was one thing I could boast about our club, is that we had very few injuries. Most common are muscle cramps and majority can't continue due to muscle fatigue. As I mention earlier, it was always our goal to create a non competitive environment where everyone irrespective of skill or physical attributes can learn something useful and have fun at the same time. Live sparring is usually at the end of the class, we add some variables for the students to think about, like emphasizing on flow & control, so people don't have negative thoughts about tapping each other out all the time.
It's my hope that we will continue to grow as a club. We still have our annual dinner. In 2012, we'll have our head instructor from Aussy (John Will) come give us a seminar. Have a great year ahead everyone :)
Rizan
While our number is nothing to boast about, we had our fair share of students come and go. Sam has been teaching most of the classes with me filling in very occasionally. In the beginning, it was difficult for me to breakdown a technique and explain it at the same time. Not to mention that I had to develop the confidence to teach guys that had more experience than me! I felt it was way easier to just do the technique than to explain it. Over time, I devised methods to make the class more exciting. Eg, having the students draw lots for a certain submission attempt while their training partners would have to defend against it. With 5 mins per round, it gave them time to devise a plan to sub their partners or just go right for it from the start. I also focused on interval drills with 3 pairs on the ground doing different drills at the same time, eg. one pair passing/defending guard, another pair escaping/defending from side mount and another pair trying to establish back control escape/defense.
At the end of the class, it was always a pleasure to know that everyone enjoyed it and most importantly, no one was injured. If there was one thing I could boast about our club, is that we had very few injuries. Most common are muscle cramps and majority can't continue due to muscle fatigue. As I mention earlier, it was always our goal to create a non competitive environment where everyone irrespective of skill or physical attributes can learn something useful and have fun at the same time. Live sparring is usually at the end of the class, we add some variables for the students to think about, like emphasizing on flow & control, so people don't have negative thoughts about tapping each other out all the time.
It's my hope that we will continue to grow as a club. We still have our annual dinner. In 2012, we'll have our head instructor from Aussy (John Will) come give us a seminar. Have a great year ahead everyone :)
Rizan
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