What is your policy on observing?

[tellner]

Tez, the nice thing about the belligerent violent ones is that they supply Teachable Moments for the students.

"Alright class, what did he do wrong?"

"He was talking when he should have been fighting. He telegraphed his punch and led with his right. He let his other hand drop."
​

"Anything else? Yes, Susie?"

"He didn'... uh he didn' tuck his head when he fell down."
​

"Very good, Susie! Now what lock am I using on him?"

 

[Tez3]

Tez, the nice thing about the belligerent violent ones is that they supply Teachable Moments for the students.


"Alright class, what did he do wrong?"

"He was talking when he should have been fighting. He telegraphed his punch and led with his right. He let his other hand drop."​

"Anything else? Yes, Susie?"

"He didn'... uh he didn' tuck his head when he fell down."​

"Very good, Susie! Now what lock am I using on him?"

That's cool!!
It would be nice if we did get a visitor like that but we are based in a military barracks so they have to get through the main gate first and the sentries have all the fun then lol!

 

[tellner]

That's cool!!
It would be nice if we did get a visitor like that but we are based in a military barracks so they have to get through the main gate first and the sentries have all the fun then lol!

Awww. That's no fun. Tell 'em to save you some. After all "It's for the Children"....

 

[tshadowchaser]

I have always been open to having people watch the classes. I’ll answer questions for them after class or if my son is teaching I may observe the observer. What I have found a few times is an experienced martial artist who dose not know my system or me and is curious but dose not what to introduce himself right away for one reason or another.

I have been dressed in my street cloths a few times , when my son was teaching, and sat with visitors to hear what they had to say. Sometimes they make some observations that have by passed your perception because you are teaching all the time.

 

[pete]

Parents, Grandparents, etc are always welcome and encouraged to watch any class, any time.

Students (or potential students) who might be interested are not allowed on the floor to observe, but they can pay by the class.
Kids $10, Adults $14. Sign the waiver and participate. It kinda shows you are interested and not just wasting everybody's time...

pete

 

[terryl965]

Parents, Grandparents, etc are always welcome and encouraged to watch any class, any time.

Students (or potential students) who might be interested are not allowed on the floor to observe, but they can pay by the class.
Kids $10, Adults $14. Sign the waiver and participate. It kinda shows you are interested and not just wasting everybody's time...

pete

Pete don't you feel by not letting people stay and watch, you might be hurting your student base?

 

[pete]

Maybe, but for every potentially 'good' student that walks away are probably 3 that I am happy that they did walk away, because they aren't serious about it to begin with. Just ask yourself: why would you not pay a nominal price and experience a class with no strings attached.

in fact, my students can go on indefinitely simply paying class by class. I have no contracts, membership fees, or monthly rates. but on the other hand, my wife and i teach all the classes ourselves, so we do not want to waste our time with freddy the freeloader or curious george~

ask me about our 90% retention rates~

pete

 

[IcemanSK]

I encourage parents to stay & watch class. Most do, but some don't because it distracts their child. I teach in a church building. As part of my teaching there (as a member of the church who runs a program there) I had to go through 3 hours of sexual abuse awareness training for the church's insurance. Because of this, I'm very conscience of how I relate to my students. Part of that is having an adult/student helper (who is female) with me and the kids at all times. For the concerns about these issues, I encourage & welcome parents always. I don't want to make it sound like I paranoid. I'm just quite aware of this issue.

Due to when my school is & how it's arranged, walk-ins/vistors aren't much of an issue. Usually, they are folks looking for something else in the church, or other folks from the church just passin' thru on there way somewhere. We smile, help them if they are lost, & then keep trainin.

 

[kidswarrior]

Maybe, but for every potentially 'good' student that walks away are probably 3 that I am happy that they did walk away, because they aren't serious about it to begin with. Just ask yourself: why would you not pay a nominal price and experience a class with no strings attached.

in fact, my students can go on indefinitely simply paying class by class. I have no contracts, membership fees, or monthly rates. but on the other hand, my wife and i teach all the classes ourselves, so we do not want to waste our time with freddy the freeloader or curious george~

ask me about our 90% retention rates~

pete

Definitely food for thought. Never considered dong it that way, but it makes sense.

 

[Lynne]

Our school has two floors. The bottom floor has windows which face the outside sidewalk and street. Very smart. We often have onlookers. On Saturday mornings especially, shoppers are strolling along and will watch from the outside. During the weekday evenings, we get a lot of teens looking in. There are street festivals a few times a year and we always have a demonstration in the street as well as cookies/pastries for sell (to help with our annual trip to Cardiff, Wales). We have 100's of onlookers during the demonstrations and at the windows watching our classes.

Anyone is welcome to come in and observe our classes. We have bleachers set up in the downstairs training area as well as the upstairs area. The downstairs area has a half wall (about a yard high or so) around with two entrances for students. The upstairs area is a hardwood floor (ouch by the way - knuckle pushups are just a blast) and we have that cordoned off with ropes.

People may try out at anytime. If they are not sure TSD is for them, I believe they are allowed to try out a second time, even a third. I think that's a great idea.

I watched my daughter's classes for 9 months and saw how much fun everyone was having, despite the pain, lol. I wanted to try out badly but couldn't muster the courage until the school had buddy week. My daughter asked me to come to buddy week. It was tough but I loved it. And I've never looked back. If I hadn't observed the classes, I might not have ever tried out.

I would have never let my daughter take classes if I couldn't observe what was going on. She's my child and I'm responsible for her safety and well-being.

Some observers are rude. You know, like using cellphones during testing (there is nothing like being asked to do a combination in Korean, trying to mentally translate it in five seconds before Master R says, "ONE!", then hearing a cellphone go "deedly-deedly-do-ding" and a "hello"), talking so loud we can't hear the instructors during class. Master R has made comments/requests in the school newsletters about respecting students and training by being quiet. I think that's helped.

If noise issues are a worry, a visible sign that says, "Please turn off you cellphones and remain quiet during student training" would be a tremendous help.

 

[CrimsonPhoenix]

I train in one of the smaller buildings in a church, so unfortunately we don't have an observation room or anything. My instructors welcome parents, interested students and other visitors to sit on the side and watch for as long as they want. Usually we have just a few parents that stay seeing as our class is from 6:30-8:30 at night and there's hardly any kids tagging along with them. So far we really haven't had any trouble with the visitors being distracting. Everyone is really nice and quiet too. I like it.

Since we moved to the side building, we haven't gotten as many curious onlookers who were going somewhere else in the church, spotted our class and came over to watch. It got a little annoying when they came up to the door and pointed at the funny looking people in white doing drills and forms and whatnot.

Some observers are rude. You know, like using cellphones during testing (there is nothing like being asked to do a combination in Korean, trying to mentally translate it in five seconds before Master R says, "ONE!", then hearing a cellphone go "deedly-deedly-do-ding" and a "hello"), talking so loud we can't hear the instructors during class. Master R has made comments/requests in the school newsletters about respecting students and training by being quiet. I think that's helped.

We've had that happen a couple times, though not from who you would think. It would be in the middle of something with the advanced belts and we would really be getting into it and then a really loud custom ringtone would go off and one of the instructors would have to run over and turn off their cell phone. :lol: It was a funny respite from the seriousness of it all. Actually I think it happened when there was a visiting instructor and it was his phone...

 

[Grenadier]

Visitors: Certainly welcome to come on in, watch a class or three, and have a chat with one of the instructors afterwards. These are a significant source of potential students, and you want them to feel welcome.

However, there are some who just come in, and have absolutely no intention of joining, and are there to simply strut their stuff. I'll still be polite to them, and offer them a chance to join, but I'm not going to bend over backwards to bring them in. We've had several interesting folks like this come in, and if you have your own school, you probably already know of the types of characters to which I am referring!

Parents / family / associates of the students: Certainly always welcome to come and watch, as long as they keep relatively quiet, and don't interfere with classes. I don't tell them how to raise their kids, so I'd expect them to not attempt to teach my classes for me.

 

[PEP-REP]

Through the years we have have had various policies on watching class. We have different setups at different locations based on size of the school. Generally we do not encourage watching class it causes a distraction for the students in the class. We have certian times that parents are welcome into the training area to view the progress of the children. At all other times parent have the ability to see there children but or schools are setup that we have the main training gym with a smaller training room off the main gym. there is always windows from the smaller gym looking into the larger gym but parents must stay in waiting area so there is limited viewing of the class going on. and by no means is there a distubance from the "lobby" disrubting the class. Basically it is how you sell your policy to the parents.

If it is an adult comes in give them a free trial program you can't learn anything by watching. you have to try it out. Any adult that wants to watch a class is lacking the confidence to try the class and needs to be encouraged to get in there and particpate.

Students come to a school for structure and discipline. By having rules and sticking to them and explaining them to the parents in a positive light they will understand them and will agree with them.

To teach a class of 20 5-9 year olds with 10 parents sitting there watching is not giving a good service there is no way to have them all stay focused on the teaching and not waiving to mom and dad. The parents cause a distraction.

just my experience

 

[pete]

Students come to a school for structure and discipline. By having rules and sticking to them and explaining them to the parents in a positive light they will understand them and will agree with them.

To teach a class of 20 5-9 year olds with 10 parents sitting there watching is not giving a good service there is no way to have them all stay focused on the teaching and not waiving to mom and dad. The parents cause a distraction.

just my experience

depends on the philosophy and direction of YOUR school. Some might feel youngsters of today may have TOO MUCH structure and discipline, and may FOREGO rules & regulations for a more open/respectful atmosphere.

in these cases, students will learn to deal with distractions rather than avoidance. I always let parents view classes, but hold the students responsible for their class time. yes, with 5-9 year olds.

pete

 

[PEP-REP]

depends on the philosophy and direction of YOUR school. Some might feel youngsters of today may have TOO MUCH structure and discipline, and may FOREGO rules & regulations for a more open/respectful atmosphere.

in these cases, students will learn to deal with distractions rather than avoidance. I always let parents view classes, but hold the students responsible for their class time. yes, with 5-9 year olds.

pete

I would have to respectfully disagree with you that the majority of parents feel kids have to much discipline today. The number one thing members / parents ask for in our schools is Discipline.

Now our policy of not having an open view of the class goes much deeper than just not wanting them to learn. We use the reasons I stated above to have agrrement from the parents on the topics. We create alot of excitement with our promotion testing because that is the time all the parents come in to the training room and view the students up close. Promotion testing in our schools Is a very large event with a celebration atmosphere. The parents look forward to seeing the growth of there children. When they watch on a daily basis the growth is not a noticable as when they see them (up close) every 6-8 weeks (depending on student).

similar to a relative saying "oh john you have got so big since the lat time I saw you" the parents can really see an improvement of their children and then are much more satisfied. Our research over 20 years have shown this to be true and that is why we keep the policy as it is.

respectfully

Glenn

 

[pete]

feel free to disagree glenn... notice i said SOME might feel that way, which allows for the fact that OTHERS may not. This philosophical difference will ultimately play out in WHICH students (and parents) enroll in a school like ours, and WHICH end up in yours.

seems like our differences would help the CONSUMER make their CHOICES.

pete

 

[PEP-REP]

feel free to disagree glenn... notice i said SOME might feel that way, which allows for the fact that OTHERS may not. This philosophical difference will ultimately play out in WHICH students (and parents) enroll in a school like ours, and WHICH end up in yours.

seems like our differences would help the CONSUMER make their CHOICES.

pete

I agree and that is the nice thing about a free society.. lol and no matter what the policy is it is how the instructor handles the policy that makes it work or not..

Glenn

 

[Drac]

Anyone is welcome to come in and observe our classes...