Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Class size & levels
It's an interesting situation these days with half of the class with less than 3 weeks of experience, and the other half composed of the usual bunch. J&K are not yet able to lead a beginners class comfortably and at the level I would like. At the same time the advanced group needs some special attention, in preparation for the tournament in October. So I'm caught having to split the class in two and run between one group and another. This is currently making things a bit challenging and impacts negatively, I'm sure, on the quality of the class. So depending on how long and how many beginners stick we may or not completely separate the classes. There are different ways to do that:

- start beginners classes on an additional day. The benefit is that there would be no pressure for time and this may be less intimidating to them. The disadvantages are a possible increase in rent, challenges in having some of the advanced guys to attend to give class instead of me at times, and less exposure to "real" kendo could lead to some demotivation.

- another option is to keep the start of the class for beginners and have the advanced start a bit later:
- 6:30 - 7:30 Beginners
- 7:30 - 9:00 Advance class

... I think I like this last option...
Also this is most likely a short term option, as the beginners who remain will be ready to participate with advanced within 2 months or so. When that happens we'll have to see if we have special team training separated from the rest of the team.