Beginner class and advanced class

[Dirty Dog]

I take it you guys are as good as I am at drawing hard and fast, inviolate borders between things.

It just seems unnecessary. Our beginner class is geared towards white/yellow belts. But higher ranks will come in all the time for work on basics, to work on their teaching skills, or just to get some extra cardio.
Our intermediate class is geared towards geup ranks from green (7th geup) on up. But it's not uncommon for yellow belts to come. They may get a bit lost, and we let them know that we're not slowing things down to their level, but they still learn. Black belts are in this class all the time.
Our advanced class is geared towards upper geup ranks (say 3rd geup or higher) and black belts. But, again, it's not uncommon to have lower ranks attend, and they certainly benefit from the class.
If we were a big commercial school, it would likely be necessary to be more rigid. But for us, this works just fine.

 

[wab25]

i feel the segregation method holds many people back as they wait to be proficient at something before moving on. not to mention the darker side of the coin where the teacher or organization can withhold information in order to prolong a students time and keep them paying.

Yes. In some cases this is by design. Students are held back until they are proficient at something. You have to learn the low falls, before the medium falls and the medium falls before the high falls. Students should be held back from learning throws that require uke to take a high fall, until that student can take that particular high fall.

In a way, it is about keeping them paying. If you take your white belt, who is barely learning his first falls and launch him into the air, with his feet over his head... He won't be back on the mat any time soon if at all, after recovering from the injuries. Which means he won't be paying dues.

In the end it is a balance. You need to allow the higher ranks time to train their higher arts. This could be a separate class, or they separate out during class. But, there also needs to be significant training with all ranks working together, in the same class. Everyone needs to work on their basics. Some need to look up to an example and feel technique from someone doing it right. Some need test what they are doing, need to explore the technique from another viewpoint or need to work teaching skills. Everyone needs to work with people of different shapes, sizes and abilities. Each art will find a different balance and each school in that art will find their own balance. Sometimes, the balance is effected by the number of students, scheduling or any number of other things. But, you do need to find the right balance. Personally, I error on the side of too much time for all ranks working together on the basics...

 

[mrt2]

I will say this. My current school does advanced only classes a couple of times a week, and general classes the rest of the time. And general classes all the time at their smaller satelite school, which is actually closer to my house. While frustrating for me now as a beginner, I see the benefit, as I remember in my past training, my school didn't have advanced classes very often and once I got past red belt, I would have benefitted. I say this because looking back, I got the most out of MA from about 6 months, when I earned my green belt, to 18 months, when I earned my first stripe on my red belt. at 6 months, I was past the real beginner stuff, and every class was a challenge. But once I was among the higher ranking students in class, that was no longer always the case, and sometimes I had to work with lower belts, which was fine, but it was also time I wasn't spending challenging myself to get better.

So now, I know that this time next year, and the year after, there will be some training options I don't have now. IMO, it is always good to have new things to look forward to rather than some inchoate notion of, get here early and work on your curiculum yourself, or try to ask a 2nd or 3rd Dan to work with you once a week on some advanced techniques, which may or may not happen.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

im not sure if we actually disagree or not. let me restate what i am thinking.

this post is pointing at what i am saying. segregation works because the "curriculum" is large and has a fixed progression. you learn A then you learn B. the methodology uses segregation and the natural human brain trait to divide large amount of data into smaller chunks. this is why we remember phone numbers as 1-508-867-5309 rather than 15088675309. this works well when it is declarative knowledge of factual memorization. but when we are trying to address skill building which is procedural memory the method of segregation slows the process.
i feel to skill build, the fastest method would be to learn as we do in nature ...organically. you learn the things that come easy to you first then work on the harder tasks latter. this will be different for each individual. its better in my view point then trying to force A before B before C.
it was mentioned about the benefit of training with more experienced people. yes exactly ...because you are learning more organically. i feel the segregation method holds many people back as they wait to be proficient at something before moving on. not to mention the darker side of the coin where the teacher or organization can withhold information in order to prolong a students time and keep them paying.

I'm not sure we do disagree, either.

My point was that, even with all that information, I don't see segregated classes as useful, except that it allows advanced practitioners to play at an advanced level. Sure, it allows them to work on advanced material, but they can do that almost as easily working as a sub-group in a regular class (I'm accustomed to classes where not everyone is doing the same thing all the time).

So, if I were at a boxing gym, I'd expect the best boxers to work together more than with the less-skilled boxers, assuming they were trying to keep getting better. Even though there's not an expanding curriculum to separate into chunks. I'd hope some of their time would be spent with the less-skilled folks, because that's good for that lower-skilled group, but that's not going to give the really good boxers much new skill development.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

It just seems unnecessary. Our beginner class is geared towards white/yellow belts. But higher ranks will come in all the time for work on basics, to work on their teaching skills, or just to get some extra cardio.
Our intermediate class is geared towards geup ranks from green (7th geup) on up. But it's not uncommon for yellow belts to come. They may get a bit lost, and we let them know that we're not slowing things down to their level, but they still learn. Black belts are in this class all the time.
Our advanced class is geared towards upper geup ranks (say 3rd geup or higher) and black belts. But, again, it's not uncommon to have lower ranks attend, and they certainly benefit from the class.
If we were a big commercial school, it would likely be necessary to be more rigid. But for us, this works just fine.

Even if I had a large commercial school, I'm not sure I'd care to be more rigid than that. It's good for the advanced ranks to play in the lower classes. And it's good for ambitious yellow belts to get a chance to play in the "big leagues" (to them) and either shine or learn how much they have to learn. As a brown belt, I grumbled when my instructor allowed ranks below purple (the stated requirement) to join the advanced class. Now, I think it was probably a good idea.

 

[hoshin1600]

So, if I were at a boxing gym, I'd expect the best boxers to work together more than with the less-skilled boxer

Yes and my thoughts are that, segregated or collective classes are an out growth of the training methodology of the style. The more complex the style is with a large curriculum the more need there is for the segmented division but a less complex art like boxing or Muay Thai is better learnt with an open format.

 

[Anarax]

The dojo I train at separates the beginners and the advanced students into separate classes. Typically, when you get to purple belt (4th belt) they will recommend that you move to the advanced class. I'm wondering how common this is and what everyone thinks about this? What are the pros and cons of this?

Training with more experienced people is usually a bonus. I attended an old school Karate Dojo that had many black belts but few lower ranked students. Conditioning and sparring with the black belts whipped me into shape and helped me progress at a faster rate. There were times where it felt overwhelming, but pushing through it helped me develop as a Martial Artist.

However; there is a give and take when it comes to the experienced vs less experienced training partners. If you're a more advance student there are times where you're going to be training with someone you're not going to get a whole lot out of. For example, if I'm doing an arm clashing bone conditioning drill with someone with unconditioned forearms, I'm not going to get a whole lot out of that drill. However, my partner will get a great workout and will develop stronger forearms from it. This isn't wrong, it's just the reality of having to train at your partners level for lack of experience.

When dealing with a broader gap of skill, experience and conditioning, one person will obviously get more out of it. There does need to be a time where the more advance students can train with someone on their level so they can develop, without this they'll stagnate.

Personally, I'm a fan of separating classes by age more than by rank, though I understand the reasoning of separating by rank.

 

[Danny T]

In our Youth Programs we have a Beginners (Fundamentals) Class and then they move up into what we call our Youth Warriors class (Intermediate and Advanced). The Beginners class is usually 4-6 months.

With our adults classes beginners are folded into the class and works with a senior student for the first month. We can break up the classes by levels and have students working on different levels of techniques at the same time. Average 25-30 per class.