Tag: teach

Principles of a Good Taekwondo Class – Nothing without purpose

Should you use lesson plans in Taekwondo? Should you write out what it is you intend to do in a lesson and then follow that in the lesson?

Many Taekwondo instructors – indeed I would guess most Taekwondo instructors – don’t use lesson plans – and would say that you shouldn’t – that it’s a bad idea. And I am inclined to agree with them for the most part. Lesson plans can make you unadaptive. You don’t necessarily know which students are going to turn up on which evenings, and often you can be surprised by what it is that each student needs to work on. Rigidly following a lesson plan can mean that you focus on the wrong things. You need to be able to adapt what you’re doing based on the students you have in front of you and the abilities that they have (and indeed the things they might have forgotten since last week). Using lesson plans regularly can also diminish your capacity to improvise – which is a vital skill for an instructor (and indeed any Taekwondo-in above red belt) to have – you must be able to instruct any group of students below your grade at any time with no warning.

However, not using lesson plans can create a problem, and that is that there is a lack of focus to what you are teaching. This is a problem I have seen (unfortunately) hundreds of times over the 20+ years that I’ve been doing Taekwondo. Because an instructor is improvising, the class lacks any sense of focus – there’s nothing in particular that the instructor is trying to teach the students on that day. They just do all of the usual stuff – the stuff they do almost every week. There’s no purpose to the class.

When what you’re doing is arbitrary – when it is aimless, directionless – the students begin to wonder why they’re doing it. And then soon they begin to wonder why they go to the class at all. What’s the point? What does it offer them? It disillusions the students, and over time contributes to the attrition of class numbers.

I have seen it hundreds of times: ‘Now do this technique to the pad.’. Why? Is this to develop our power when using basic techniques? Is this to practise a new technique against a physical target? Is this to improve our balance? Is this to improve our accuracy? Is this for fitness? None of the above? What, then? What is it for? Or was it just the first thing that came into your head, but there’s nothing you’re trying to actually teach by getting everyone to do it? If you don’t know what the focus is, then the students won’t know either.

You don’t have to write out a plan that details what the students will be doing in every single minute of the class – but you do need to have a point to what you’re doing – there must be a purpose to it. All this requires is that before the lesson, you think of something – just one thing – that you want to focus on. Perhaps it’s the proper form and purpose of a wedging block? Perhaps it’s the differences between a vertical stance and a rear-foot stance? Perhaps it’s balance exercises, or exercises that improve agility for sparring? It can be really any part of Taekwondo, but you must think of it before the lesson, know what about that thing is important, and come up with some ideas for activities that focus on or train that particular thing.

Doing this increases the amount of knowledge you impart to students, it makes the lessons more interesting and varied, and it keeps the students (and you) mentally engaged.

(Note: there are some instructors who will always find it difficult to do this – to improvise, but to retain a sense of purpose as to what they’re doing. If you find that this is you, then you do need to write lesson plans. So you need to work out how good you are at improvising a lesson.)

Taekwondo Training Advice: Practise a form no more than three times on any one day

Something that I say to students when I teach them forms is that you should not perform the same form more than three times on any one day. (Three doesn’t have to be the limit, but the point is don’t repeat the same form too many times.)

When I see students practising forms, I often see them do the same form over and over again, at the same speed, and without much concentration on the individual techniques. This is not a good way to practise forms – if you just repeat the same form over and over in the same way, it will become boring, and then you’re more likely to perform the form with incorrect technique. Over time you then learn the form incorrectly, and it then takes much more effort to correct the techniques.

The key to learning forms well is regular repetition. It’s much better to perform a form once a day for ten days than it is to perform that pattern ten times in one day. Regular repetition is much better for building memories. In this regard Taekwondo is similar to learning a music instrument or learning a foreign language. It’s much better to practise a piece of piano music once a day for ten days than it is to practise it ten times in one day.

Similarly, don’t always practise a form in the same way. Vary how you practise a form to prevent forms practice from becoming boring. Sometimes perform the form very slowly, or pause on each technique and check that it’s correct. Sometimes just perform the stances of the form, or practise a particular combination that’s in the form in line-work. Sometimes look at techniques in the form and think how they could be used in sparring or self defence.