Fist lesson- First student

[JowGaWolf]

So I taught my first Jow Ga lesson today. It went well and she's looking forward to training again on Wednesday.

She has a smooth round house kick that has some nice speed to it. She can kick my head with little effort. I taught her the first 26 movements of the for so well train those parts for about 2 or 3 months before grabbing the rest of the form.

Training includes footwork, jab, straight punch, vertical backfist, escape and counter wrist grab, three elbow strikes, power generation and stance training. Today was a summary of things that will be drilled over the next few months. It was really nice to teach again.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

She has a smooth round house kick ...

In my last class, one of my students threw a high roundhouse kick at me. I caught his kicking leg. I then felt his leg muscle was so tight that caused his body to fall backward.

This guy can throw a high front kick. But he cannot throw a high roundhouse kick. Some proper stretching is missing in his daily training (such as side split).

 

[_Simon_]

That's really so awesome to hear brother, happy for you, hope it continues going well

 

[Flying Crane]

How long is the session? That sounds to me like a lot of material for a complete beginner, on day one. Just be careful you don’t drown her.

 

[michaelbiancardi]

Congrats on a good first lesson! I hope your student sticks with their training. It sounds like they have good potential. That does sound like a bit much for one lesson, but it's pretty important, solid stuff. I understand you probably want to give a potential student a good overview of what you teach.

 

[JowGaWolf]

That's really so awesome to hear brother, happy for you, hope it continues going well

I hope so too. So far so good because she's shifting her schedule around to get in the martial arts training. Next lesson is on Wednesday. She wants to start the training earlier so I'll shift my schedule a little so that the lessons can start 30 minutes earlier. She has a boxing class before the kung fu lessons and must wait an hour before Kung fu. I told her that I could come 30 minutes earlier. That will give her a 30-minute rest break to regain some energy.

I think I will quickly gain other students if she stays around for at least 5 months, and she displays visual progress within 1 month.

How long is the session? That sounds to me like a lot of material for a complete beginner, on day one. Just be careful you don’t drown her.

The sessions are only an hour + whatever she does at home on her own. It's a lot but I'm trying a new teaching approach that should make it easier for her to learn and develop multiple things at once. Traditionally a Jow Ga teacher wouldn't train forms this early on. My theory is that the form will help improve my teaching and students learning.

Here's what Wednesday training will look like.
1. Footwork drills (working on shuffling footwork and angle)
2. Straight punches and jabs.
3. Conditioning (legs and fists)

We'll use an hour to train only these 3 things and the footwork drills are going to come straight from the beginning form. I'll keep training these things until she reaches application skill level. She takes fitness boxing and has taken martial arts before, So she should get quite a bit of practice between fitness boxing and lessons with me.

What I'm hoping to hear eventually is that her kung fu helped her to improve in her boxing fitness class. In terms of coaching, it would be a big win for me, if I'm able to help where the fitness boxing coach wasn't able to help. But not a surprise, since I've seen the boxing coach there do private classes where he spent 90 of his time looking at his phone and not at the student doing the exercises. As long as she comes out better by training with me than before she trained with me.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I understand you probably want to give a potential student a good overview of what you teach.

This is my biggest worry. Because kung fu basics is such a slow start that people with short attention spans begin to wonder if they will learn anything else other than standing in a stance and doing robot like punch drills. I hope that integrating my workout into her training will help to prevent that drag for her. I think she will learn and perform better this way. I'm hoping it will give her a short term easy to reach target that keeps her engaged.

The way I learned was to do a horse stance until my teacher told me I was done. I never had an overview beyond a written one or a verbal one "One day you'll learn the first form." In this case. I want the form to be a byproduct of the training vs the form being the goal of the training. I'm making the form the polish instead of the foundation.