Learn 7-17x faster with private lessons?

Let us examine this.
A Kenpo instructor, can "teach" the technique Five Swords very quickly. There are four (or five) basics that compose the technique.​


A - Step back into a Right Neutral Bow​

B - Execute a Right Thrusting Inward Block to the aggressors forearm​

C - Execute a Right Front Ball Kick to the aggressors groin​

D - Land with an Right Outward Diagonal Handsword to the aggressors neck​


Psst... isn't this Delayed Sword? (Does somebody need a private lesson?):ultracool

Respects,
Bill Parsons
Triangle Kenpo Institute

 
Psst... isn't this Delayed Sword? (Does somebody need a private lesson?):ultracool

Respects,
Bill Parsons
Triangle Kenpo Institute

[/indent]
Bwahahahahaha! Or to put it another way:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

It's advertising! I think we can all agree to some degree that a private lesson may be more valuable than limited exposure in a group class. Well, maybe not, but most of us can... to some degree. LOL!

Of course, it depends on the individual, but I have found that, personally, I tend to do better with a combination of private lessons and group.
 
I'll jump in the "private+group" lot. I had been training for about 18 years before taking private lessons. Granted, my training had been in too many disciplines to remember, and I'd developed a lot of gaps and idiosyncrasies in my martial arts. private lessons helped my get rid of those. My foundation has become a lot stronger because of it. I still go to three or four group lessons a week and practice at least 12 hours a week, though, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it as well. But back before I was taking private lessons I was doing as much if not more practice with less results. So for me it's worth the money.
 
I'll jump in the "private+group" lot. I had been training for about 18 years before taking private lessons. Granted, my training had been in too many disciplines to remember, and I'd developed a lot of gaps and idiosyncrasies in my martial arts. private lessons helped my get rid of those. My foundation has become a lot stronger because of it. I still go to three or four group lessons a week and practice at least 12 hours a week, though, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it as well. But back before I was taking private lessons I was doing as much if not more practice with less results. So for me it's worth the money.

Josh, your bio says you were born in 1982 and you trained for 18 years before taking private lessons. So you started training when exactly?

Also, your SKK red belt rank: is that one of those non-rank ranks that you get from the instructor's academy? If so, what is your actual rank?
 
Hello, Private lessons or Group classes....Yes ! One on one you will learn quicker and lessons is only focus on you alone, where in a group it is harder to point out all the weakness and strenghts of the individuals in a group.

BUT: anyone can learn faster 7X or more if they practice everyday and everychance they can on their own time.

Those private lessons many times is only for 1-2 hours maybe two to three times a week. Same as group classes.

Remember in the old days of Okinawa...they train everyday for couple of hours doing the same things over and over and over.....NOT LIKE TODAY's TRAINING.

The more you put into it (martial art training)...the faster it becomes a part of you.

Pro's sports players,MMA, and other'snow...they have to practice everyday or practice harder and more often than others to become the BEST!

Tiger Woods is a good example of someone who is always on the course practicing constantly. Harder than most other pro's too!

ANYONE CAN GET BETTER! ...even 7X better than most people if they go all out on there practice and training, and more often too!.

Bruce Lee at one point was training his body over 8 hours a day...to become like Bruce Lee is to train like Bruce Lee or harder!

Private lessons is always better way to train. Usually more costly.

Group classes or normal class training is good too, Just that you need to practice at home, everyday and for long hours focusing on what you are learning...doing same things over and over and over....you too will improve 7X faster than your own classmates. (most people do not train at home or do very little training at all at home).

Aloha
 
Hello, One more thing....those who sparr alot, with alot of contact, at every class....lots of black eyes, bruise, and so on at usually learn faster at fighting. (especially if they practice like real).

Our Professor use to mention (in his younger days of training) they would lock the classroom doors, spar and spar and spar.....most of the students went home hurting....learn to fight like real.....is too fight like real....YOU will learn quickly what works and what does NOT.

Boxer knows it take a few months of getting hit constantly before the bodies "do not hurt anymore"....less pain is felt. Pain tolerance is built up!

Many times it is how you train too! ...private lessons or NOT!

Aloha
 
Josh, your bio says you were born in 1982 and you trained for 18 years before taking private lessons. So you started training when exactly?

Also, your SKK red belt rank: is that one of those non-rank ranks that you get from the instructor's academy? If so, what is your actual rank?

When I was five. There was a 2 year period in my early teens when I didn't train or do much of anything. Family turmoil is all I will say. But keep in mind I didn't point out the length of training as being one of my strengths, but as one of my weaknesses.

Yes, the red is a no rank rank. I go test for green in a couple of weeks.
 
When I was five. There was a 2 year period in my early teens when I didn't train or do much of anything. Family turmoil is all I will say. But keep in mind I didn't point out the length of training as being one of my strengths, but as one of my weaknesses.

Yes, the red is a no rank rank. I go test for green in a couple of weeks.

My point is that you're in an organization that sells privates as a major part of their revenue. Given that you're a "red belt" it tells me that you are being indoctrinated into theirs sales pitch mentality in their "Instructor's Academy". Hence, your opinions about the value of privates are based on something other than objectivity.
 
My point is that you're in an organization that sells privates as a major part of their revenue. Given that you're a "red belt" it tells me that you are being indoctrinated into theirs sales pitch mentality in their "Instructor's Academy". Hence, your opinions about the value of privates are based on something other than objectivity.

Eh... that's a bit shaky, seeing as I didn't start out as a red belt. I was one private lessons, and discovered the value as just a student. Now, being human, my oppinion is necessarily subjective, but I have had experiences in both martial arts and education in general to state my oppinion with some confidence.

I understand that I do in fact have something to gain by talking about the value of private lessons, but that, in and of itself does not invalidate my claim. Ad hominem arguments are fallacious. Yes I'm a red belt, and yes, I'm being indoctrinated, as it were, to the company line. But that doesn't have an effect on the validity of my claim.

Private guitar lessons made me better at guitar than group lessons, but group lessons helped teach me to play with others. Private lessons in martial arts have drastically increased my abilities, and the group lessons work well in tandem with the private lessons. So in my subjective yet informed oppinion, I had come to the conclusion that private lessons were of great benefit to me long before it occurred to me to start teaching.
 
Eh... that's a bit shaky, seeing as I didn't start out as a red belt. I was one private lessons, and discovered the value as just a student. Now, being human, my oppinion is necessarily subjective, but I have had experiences in both martial arts and education in general to state my oppinion with some confidence.

I understand that I do in fact have something to gain by talking about the value of private lessons, but that, in and of itself does not invalidate my claim. Ad hominem arguments are fallacious. Yes I'm a red belt, and yes, I'm being indoctrinated, as it were, to the company line. But that doesn't have an effect on the validity of my claim.

Private guitar lessons made me better at guitar than group lessons, but group lessons helped teach me to play with others. Private lessons in martial arts have drastically increased my abilities, and the group lessons work well in tandem with the private lessons. So in my subjective yet informed oppinion, I had come to the conclusion that private lessons were of great benefit to me long before it occurred to me to start teaching.

Ad hominem arguments are only invalid when it is dealing with something objective. As you said, your opinions are subjective, and they are partly based on what you're being told by your organization. Thus the source of the information in this thread is your opinions about something and ad hominem is therefore perfectly legitimate given that the source and arguer are inextricably inerconnected.
 
However, my oppinion is about something objective: the value of private lessons coupled with (not in opposition to) group classes. Keep in mind that an argument, ANY argument, is necessarily subjective, statements and support of the statements themselves determine validity, not the source. In any event, volumns have been written on informal fallacies, and I don't need to personally shoot down the curcumstantial ad hominim as fallacious.

But again, it's not in the academy that I decided private lessons with group lessons were a better training model. I can set up further examples from music, mathematics, science, etc. that support my claim. And I did, when I was deciding if I wanted to pay $185 a month to take private lessons. (I was used to paying $35). When it comes down to it, people learn the same no matter the subject. They learn from being in a group and they learn one on one. And they learn faster and more fully when doing both. That's why colleges pay for on campus tutors to be available for their students. That's why there's a whole tutoring industry, for that matter. That's how people can make a living teaching musical instruments or as voice coaches. Give me a month, and I'll write a full paper on it. Heck I'll probably do it anyway.

Don't base your argument on one piece of evidence: the fact that I'm a red belt. Other than putting the cart before the horse and trying somehow to defy logic to make a fallacy valid, your argment is too narrow in scope. You have no idea what my experience is, or what my degree is in. I could have a GED or a doctorate in Education, and you don't know(just so you know: neither). But you decided my oppinion on private lessons-- and for some reason, only private lessons, though I am arguing for the "private and group" category-- based on my involvement in the USSD instructors, and I would assume based on previous comments you've made based on my involvement in USSD.

If you're going to make a counter-argument to my take on private instruction in conjunction with group classes my suggestion is you broaden your scope.
 
However, my oppinion is about something objective: the value of private lessons coupled with (not in opposition to) group classes. Keep in mind that an argument, ANY argument, is necessarily subjective, statements and support of the statements themselves determine validity, not the source. In any event, volumns have been written on informal fallacies, and I don't need to personally shoot down the curcumstantial ad hominim as fallacious.

But again, it's not in the academy that I decided private lessons with group lessons were a better training model. I can set up further examples from music, mathematics, science, etc. that support my claim. And I did, when I was deciding if I wanted to pay $185 a month to take private lessons. (I was used to paying $35). When it comes down to it, people learn the same no matter the subject. They learn from being in a group and they learn one on one. And they learn faster and more fully when doing both. That's why colleges pay for on campus tutors to be available for their students. That's why there's a whole tutoring industry, for that matter. That's how people can make a living teaching musical instruments or as voice coaches. Give me a month, and I'll write a full paper on it. Heck I'll probably do it anyway.

Don't base your argument on one piece of evidence: the fact that I'm a red belt. Other than putting the cart before the horse and trying somehow to defy logic to make a fallacy valid, your argment is too narrow in scope. You have no idea what my experience is, or what my degree is in. I could have a GED or a doctorate in Education, and you don't know(just so you know: neither). But you decided my oppinion on private lessons-- and for some reason, only private lessons, though I am arguing for the "private and group" category-- based on my involvement in the USSD instructors, and I would assume based on previous comments you've made based on my involvement in USSD.

If you're going to make a counter-argument to my take on private instruction in conjunction with group classes my suggestion is you broaden your scope.

When I worked at a used car lot as a detailer, we had a running joke about how each salesman would invariably utter the phrase, "I was thinking of buying that one myself." Every time a person was considering one of the least desirable cars on the lot. The point is, that because they were in charge of selling something two things were true: 1) They couldn't be trusted for an objective opinion on the cars they were selling and 2) It was their job to try to find the desirable qualities in a given car and pump those things up. "Just look at that interior!" was a favorite for a car that didn't really run very well, or one that had 150,000 miles on it.

By strapping on a red belt in your organization, you've become a salesman of private lessons. You've been trained to point out their value to the customers and you probably even believe most of what you say about their value (which is innately subjective BTW since "value" equals the point when what one person is willing to charge meets what the other is willing to pay). As a salesman, your testimony regarding these private lessons is automatically suspect. No offense is meant toward you. I am merely pointing out a fact and saying that one would hold your opinion with higher esteem if you weren't in charge of selling these things by your organization. Hence, the ad hominem argument, in this case is valid.
 
Is it your position that private lessons don't hold value? Or are you really taking issue with Josh's connection to USSD?
 
Personally, I find value in most of my private lessons. More value now with my present instructor and also because I rarely have a private lesson that is really that, private. I work out with others. One on one lesson can be very good as well. They can be used to isolate, lock-in on, areas of interest. I do not agree with those organizations that use private lessons as basically the only place to learn 'the required' material.

The numbers, 7-17x, are BS ... until someone shows me the data collected that proves the numbers, don't try to use them on me. Yes, I believe a person can learn faster with private lessons, but stating a number is pure bull (until proven otherwise, a footnote referring to the data used should be insisted upon ... LOL). I take private lessons and will continue to do so, until I feel the value is no longer there. I left my previous instructor for that very reason, I no longer felt I was getting value for my dollar and time spent.

Just my two cents ...
 
Is it your position that private lessons don't hold value? Or are you really taking issue with Josh's connection to USSD?

Actually I don't have a big problem with private lessons as such. I'm merely trying to point out who we all are here so that it's clear who is saying what, and where they are coming from. I think that most of us agree that the hyperbolic claim of 7-17 times faster is more than a bit over the top.
 
Actually I don't have a big problem with private lessons as such. I'm merely trying to point out who we all are here so that it's clear who is saying what, and where they are coming from. I think that most of us agree that the hyperbolic claim of 7-17 times faster is more than a bit over the top.


well, yeah, I think it's pretty difficult to attach real numbers to the claim, but I also think it's a reasonable claim that private lessons can accelerate one's learning, if done along with group training. I personally prefer small group training over either. I think you get to work with several people, but it's small enough that it's almost like getting a private, or you do in fact get some private attention from the instructor while other students are working on other things.

Much of my kung fu training has been strictly thru privates. This is because my sifu teaches mainly tai chi to the larger group, and modern wushu to the kids. I've studied tai chi with him, but I am also interested in the other traditional things that he doesn't teach on a regular basis to a regular group, and I don't want to do modern wushu. So he has agreed to teach them to me privately on the side. If I didn't do this, I wouldn't have the opportunity to learn this stuff at all. I wish I had other classmates who were interested in learning this stuff, but I don't, so much of it I am stuck practicing on my own. It's not perfect, but it beats the alternative, and he just doesn't have the time to start another complete session strictly to teach this stuff. There probably wouldn't be enough interest to justify the effort anyway, and to be honest, his own interest now lies more with tai chi and bagua as he gets older.

So I think there are legitimate circumstances where private lessons are the best solution.

I don't think privates should be pushed strictly to boost income, forcing people to take them if they don't need them. I don't think the critical material should be only available in privates. A dedicated student should be able to learn the system strictly thru group sessions, if that is the primary training method offered. But I can certainly see value in having privates to get some quality attention with the finer details and such.

I don't know if USSD has shady practices with private lessions. I don't really have a dog in that race. But I think many schools offer private lessons as an option and I don't see anything wrong with it in the general sense.
 

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