I’ve been teaching Taekwondo now – as a colour belt assistant, then as a black belt assistant instructor, and sometimes as a substitute instructor – for almost two decades. And I’ve been doing Taekwondo for even longer. In that time, I’ve noticed that there are many, very straightforward principles for how to run and teach a good Taekwondo class. In this series of posts, I would like to enumerate them.
A good Taekwondo class is one in which students learn effectively, covering not only the material from the curriculum, but extra material that often gets forgotten about. A good Taekwondo class is one that the students enjoy. And a good Taekwondo class is one that keeps the students active, and which progresses their fitness.
One of the most important principles for running a good Taekwondo class is: split the class. You should not have second and third degree black belts doing the same things as white and yellow belts. Sometimes they can do the same things – such as in the warm-up, and occasionally as basic line work – but for most of the lesson time they should be doing different things. A black belt who has been doing Taekwondo for eight years simply does not need to work on the same skills as someone who started Taekwondo only a few months ago – and if they do spend a lot of time doing only the most introductory material, then that’s time they’re not spending on the harder, more technical material.
The extent to which a class needs to be split varies a lot. If a school is relatively new, it’s likely that most of the students will be relatively junior colour belts. If a class is only made up of white, yellow, and green belts, then they can all do the same thing (except when training their grade syllabus of course), and the class doesn’t need to be split. With schools that have been around for a long time, however, it’s quite likely that some of the students there on any one day will have been going for years and years, and might now be first, second, third, fourth degree black belts – but, because there’s always a certain turnover of students, there are still lots of junior grades there. In such cases, the class really needs to be split – and doing so is quite easy because one of the black belts can take one of the groups.
Splitting the class is a very basic principle, but over the years I have often seen it not be followed. The result is often classes that are repetitive, and not interesting enough for the long-term students. (It can also be offputting for newer students, as they will often notice the homogeneity early on and lose interest in the art before realising just how much there is to it.)
So really it comes down to this: what is the spread of grades in any given class? If it’s a very narrow spread – all of the grades are quite close to each other – the class doesn’t need to be split. If it’s a very broad spread – you have lots of different grades – the class needs to be split – and it needs to be split almost every time. The exact divisions of the class can vary (and should vary some of the time), but I’ve found it usually needs to be something along the lines of: white belt to blue stripe (junior colour belt), blue belt to black stripe (senior colour belt), first degree black belts (generally there is a lot of new material that they suddenly need to learn upon getting to black belt), second and third degree black belts, fourth and fifth degree black belts. Splitting the class like this, and assigning students from the higher groups to teach the lower groups, ensures that the students get to focus on material that is relevant to their grade, and ensures that the classes remain varied and interesting. (It also gives students the opportunity to practise instructing – which is extremely important.)