Handbook and curriulum

[tsdclaflin]

Students NEED something in writing....either before or during their training. I earned my black belt after four years with no written curriculum. I personally hated it. I documented everything (and I learned a lot). However, I never even so much as had a vocabulary list. I would stay after class or come early and ask questions and write notes. It is not possible to remember in class the Korean name for all the techniques, much less how to spell them.

I give an intro to our style and our school. I include a list of basic terminology and etiquette. Then I have a one-page list of requirements for each rank that I hand out separately. The students have to write out their own instructions for forms, self-defense, etc.

There is balance in here somewhere.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

we're in the process of setting up our curriculum manuals. we have a student handbook/rules book we call the 'white belt manual'. it's given to each student who signs up for an introduction.

additional manuals are available for sale, but not compulsory. they include descriptions of technique plus some philosophical and historical notes.

 

[fnorfurfoot]

I sell my manuals to my students. The checklists are on my school's message board and the students can download them for free. I offer descriptions on how to perform the needed techniques in a 3 ring binder. Teaching at the YMCA, I don't have much control over how much I charge for classes themselves, so I have to suppliment my income by offering things like the manual. I don't require them to buy one, but I manage to sell quite a few of them. The first sale contains enough material for the first two belt ranks. After that I charge ten dollars per rank. That way the students don't have to dish out tons of money up front. I was concerned about doing it that way at first, but everyone seems cool with it.

When I was going through the ranks, my instructor didn't offer anything like that. We had to write down everything ourselves. I still encourage my adult students to take notes but most of my students, like many other schools, are children. They don't write down anything. So the parents buy the manuals so they know what the children have to practice at home.

 

[lhommedieu]

When I was in an instructors' class our teacher gave us a lengthy handbook that described the history, geography, and culture related to the martial art that we were learning. There was also a biography of our teacher and his teacher. I always thought that this was a great gift as it gave us the perspective to talk to our students about our art and incentive to do further research. For example, I became interested in learning more about our teacher's teacher and did research that eventually led to an update on this chapter in the manual (most of which involved contributions from other martial artists that I met on-line), which can be found at the following URL:

http://www.northshoreac.com/san_miguel_eskrima/momoy.htm

Best,

Steve Lamade