How many students do you want in class as an instructor?? As a student??
- Thread starter skribs
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Orion Nebula
Green Belt
As a student, I enjoy a low student to teacher ratio as opposed to a certain number of students. At my old dojo, we had classes of probably 20 - 25 and the dojo had a lot of space. We normally had our 2 head instructors there, plus 4 - 5 senior students (mostly shodan but also a few 1st kyu) who acted as assistant instructors. I got a lot of one on one time as a beginner, less so as I advanced, but we were generally always in very small groups.
My current dojo is small. A full class is usually 4 students and there's one instructor. It's also not unusual for me to be the only student on a Monday. I personally love those one on one classes. I get nitpicked, but I also get really good feedback. It is nice to have other students to work with, though, and 4 is nice because we can swap and work with people of different heights and skill levels. Odd numbers are fun sometimes because you can do some things like 2 against 1, which really changes the dynamics of sparring.
Occasionally we get visitors from other dojos in our organization, particularly around exam time. Once we ended up with a class of close to 10 and it felt super crowded. I wasn't a fan of that ratio at all.
My current dojo is small. A full class is usually 4 students and there's one instructor. It's also not unusual for me to be the only student on a Monday. I personally love those one on one classes. I get nitpicked, but I also get really good feedback. It is nice to have other students to work with, though, and 4 is nice because we can swap and work with people of different heights and skill levels. Odd numbers are fun sometimes because you can do some things like 2 against 1, which really changes the dynamics of sparring.
Occasionally we get visitors from other dojos in our organization, particularly around exam time. Once we ended up with a class of close to 10 and it felt super crowded. I wasn't a fan of that ratio at all.
I love getting technical, but I also know it's not the best learning mode for most students at most levels. When I get to work with a small group of more advanced folks (a few years of training) I really like helping them start to really understand the principles and what makes the techniques work - most have just done tons of repetitions and made it work without a lot of understanding. That's part of the training that I really dig.
Sorry, looking back at that, I wasn't clear. That _is_ technical. But most folks don't thrive on too much of that - it seems to serve better for folks who have more experience to build on.
About 10 students per instructor.
As a student, less I would feel lonely and to much attention from the instructor (I perform worse when observed); more I would feel just spending money without getting proper instruction. Of course, this is also relative to the room size and whether senior students are allowed to guide juniors or not.
As instructor (hypothetically, at the moment) I would rather have less than 10, but dedicated and skilled, students.
As a student, less I would feel lonely and to much attention from the instructor (I perform worse when observed); more I would feel just spending money without getting proper instruction. Of course, this is also relative to the room size and whether senior students are allowed to guide juniors or not.
As instructor (hypothetically, at the moment) I would rather have less than 10, but dedicated and skilled, students.
RTKDCMB
Senior Master
As an instructor or student, as many students that turn up.
