Episode 899 - 2 Schools of Thought: All Together or Segmented Classes

In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew start a new series: 2 Schools of Thought. They take a topic and look at 2 different ways to do it, exploring pros and cons of both.

2 Schools of Thought: All Together or Segmented Classes - Episode 899

SUMMARY

In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew discuss the two schools of thought when it comes to teaching martial arts: having all students learn everything in a school versus allowing them to pick and choose specialized classes. They explore the pros and cons of each approach, including the importance of focus and prioritization, the role of the instructor in determining curriculum, and the challenges of separate rankings for different arts. They emphasize the need for instructors and students to align their goals and evaluate teaching methods to ensure they are achieving their martial arts goals.

TAKEAWAYS

*There are two schools of thought when it comes to teaching martial arts: having all students learn everything in a school or allowing them to pick and choose specialized classes.

*Separate classes can provide focus and prioritization, allowing students to train in the areas they are most interested in. *Instructors play a crucial role in determining the curriculum and should consider the goals of their students when designing classes.

*Separate rankings for different arts can be beneficial, but it is important to ensure that students are still exposed to and progressing in all areas of martial arts.

*Both instructors and students should regularly evaluate their teaching methods and class choices to ensure they are aligned with their martial arts goals.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction and Overview

03:46 Two Schools of Thought: Teaching Everything vs. Specialized Classes

05:28 Pros and Cons of Separate Classes

08:06 The Role of the Instructor in Determining Curriculum

11:37 Separate Rankings for Different Arts

14:17 The Importance of Focus and Prioritization

18:17 Balancing Choice and Ranking

20:08 Aligning Goals of Students and Instructors

21:26 Seeking Input and Feedback from Martial Arts Community

22:09 Importance of Evaluating Teaching Methods and Class Choices

23:09 Conclusion and Call to Action

After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it.

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Show Transcript

Jeremy (00:00.642)

What's going on everybody? Welcome back. It's another episode of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. Today, Andrew and I are gonna talk about, it's another Two Schools of Thought episode. Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah. Two schools of thought. One's not right, one's not wrong. This setup is still kind of new for me. So I fumbled the ball a little bit, but we're gonna keep it, because you know what? We're not perfect and it's okay. What? I'm not perfect? You are, I'm not. Oh, okay. But here are the two schools of thought.

all students learning everything in a school versus them having some say to pick and choose. Well, we'll get into that in a moment. If you're new to what we do, please head on over to whis See every other episode we've done. What number is this going to be roughly? Oh gosh, I'd have to pull my phone in long. Beyond 900? No. Okay, almost 900. Almost.

Almost 900. We've got almost 900 episodes for you, unless you're listening to it way in the future, in which case we have even more, even more. And they're all available for free. We don't put any of our backup catalog behind a paywall, like some shows do. So you can go check out every single episode. And if you're not sure what you want to check out, well, maybe jump on Google and do some searching. Whistlekick, martial arts, radio, space, whatever. You'll find it. We've done an episode on it.

I've probably done more than one. Probably. Now, if you've been around for a little while, and you know you love what we do, you know you're aligned with the mission to connect, educate, and entertain, you know that you're on the same page with us, that martial arts makes us better people, and that if everybody in the world trained for six months, we'd solve a lot of problems, well then help us out. You can do plenty of free things like sign up for the newsletter, tell people about what we do, share episodes, etc. Follow us on social media.

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Jeremy (02:24.426)

Dragon hoodie her signature is in the hood shout out to cat You can save 15% by using the code podcast one five at whistlekick.com and just about anything in the store So let's dig in. All right. So this is our second two schools of thought This is a format that you came up with that I absolutely love and it's fun for me

Kind of philosophically. I don't know if you did. You know, I did debate in high school. I did Okay, so the listeners the viewers might not know I did debate in high school and I was trained at a very young age to be able to look at a Dilemma A subject. Yeah subject. Yeah from different perspectives. Yep Especially if I came in initially with a very strong belief on one side versus another and it's something that I think has served me very well and if you

have been around for a while, you've probably seen the influence of that in a lot of the things we do at WSOK. And that's what this is about. Yeah, so we recorded one episode already, released about a month ago, on two schools of thought, whether testing should be scheduled or whether testing should be sprung upon students. We haven't checked out that episode yet. And we talked quite a bit about one way is not right and one way is not wrong.

They just differ in their pros and cons to both. And you as a school owner need to decide what's best for you. So this topic, again, follows that same format. One way is not right, one way is not wrong, per se. They both have pluses and minuses, so let's discuss them. And so the concept is a school that teaches everything to everybody at the same time, or you have specialized classes that students can pick and choose from. And that's probably the format that

some folks might be most familiar with. The idea that certain subjects are broken out into certain classes. Now this could be as simple as we teach our BJJ curriculum on this day or in these time slots. And we teach our general curriculum on these days in these time slots where we have competition team or weapons team or demo team.

Jeremy (04:42.494)

Right? Separate classes for a separate subject matter. They may blur, the lines may cross. Sure, sure. That's one way of doing it. The way I was brought up, we had classes, we went, and the instructors taught what they wanted to teach. Yep. And sometimes it was this, and sometimes it was that. And I'll be honest, there were efforts at the instructor level to corral material a little bit. You know.

we spar on Wednesdays or Wednesdays are the days that we would spar, you know, bring your gear on Wednesdays. But you might not spar every Wednesday. But you might not spar every Wednesday and we might end up doing some non-gear related sparring things on Monday. Yep, sure.

Jeremy (05:28.258)

So you're probably on board with the division and how we're slicing this here, but let's talk about the ups and the downs on this. The first place I wanna start is this idea of, if it's separate classes, people are choosing which classes to go to, and they're probably doing the things that they like most, which means they're.

Probably not getting better at the things they need to get better at. They would most benefit from. Yeah, I would agree. In the school that I currently train in, it's a karate school, but you know, we definitely...

For those that don't know, traditional karate is not just punching and kicking. There's joint locks, there's throws, there's takedowns, there's some groundwork, although not the same level that you get at a BJJ class. But we train all of those things in karate. But he has in the past had a separate Aiki class, an Aiki Jitsu class, where he would do traditionally more...

Aikido jujitsu stuff. That's not to say that we didn't get it in the Kanate class But you could do separate training in Aikijitsu and separate training in kobuto or weapons, right? He's gotten rid of those and now we'll come to class and sometimes it will be We're gonna get our bow out and we're gonna do some staff forms or You know today we're gonna roll the mats out and we're gonna do more Aikijitsu stuff more throws and rolls and things like that

Um, and if they were all separated, people that didn't like something could choose not to do it. You're right. Now as an instructor, having more that you can draw from, assuming that you were a decent instructor means that you can best serve the needs of your student population. You've taught enough. I've taught enough that I know there are days, you know what?

Jeremy (07:34.486)

that new student that we've been working with isn't here today, they're out sick, whatever. I'm not gonna run necessarily the same plan. I'm probably not gonna run the same plan. I'm gonna cater to who's there because why wouldn't I cater to who's there? And that takes some of the power away from the students to determine what they're learning, which on the one hand you could say,

you know, why not empower the students? But I would say.

It's my job to help them progress as martial artists. By definition, they are coming to me to learn and they don't know what it's like to be on the other side of the things that I'm teaching them. So they have an unqualified or what best poorly qualified understanding of what's going on and they're making their judgments, their choices based on that. Yeah, yeah. But on the other hand, if that's what they want,

Should we not be giving, serving them in the way that they want to be served? That's the argument. We've heard plenty of times that there are students who don't want to do X. They don't want to do forms. They don't want to do sparring. They don't want to do breaking. They don't want to do whatever. And in some environments that becomes a big enough challenge for them that they stop training altogether. Yeah. If we were to.

What's the most common age demographic where we see people pull out of martial arts? It's through adolescence, right? Adolescents, early teens. If we were to design a curriculum and classes specifically for that age group to try to keep them in, it'd probably look pretty different. Yeah. And if you can agree there's benefit there, then you might agree that there's benefit in breaking things out so people can train in the way that is best suited for them.

Jeremy (09:34.95)

or at least as they see for them. So I agree. Here's something that I just thought of. Where does rank come into play in this? And here's what I mean. In our school, you could be ranked in karate, you could be ranked in Aikijitsu, you could be ranked in Kobudo. Those are independent rankings. Correct. Right, so.

You know, I, in art, in my school right now, currently I have a second degree black belt in short and root karate, but I am...

Jeremy (10:12.718)

Roku, I think, it was a long time ago that I got it, because we don't train Kobuto anymore. Differently. Heilman stuff? What's that? Heilman stuff? No, no, no. So, you know, I'm, you know, under ranked would be like green belt-ish, ranked in weapons in our school. But it's totally separate. And so when there was a separate class for that, that made sense, because we are training in a quote different art. I mean, one can make the argument.

weapons and karate were made to be trained together. That's a separate argument, but I'm training in different arts. So being ranked in different arts makes sense. But without those separate classes, those separate opportunities, separate ranking. So I think I would be pretty confident to say that if the...

ranking is separate and the curriculum is separate and the classes are separate that makes sense if you have those three pieces together Yep, then that makes sense and I think I think there are less two schools of thought Yep, I would I think we could put that piece aside, but the moment you drop one of those Right. I don't imagine people would have Separate rankings for the same curriculum. That's it. That would be a weird example. No, no, I like

Separate curriculum and separate classes. Yep, but it's part of your same ranking Yeah, that's different, you know, I'm you know, I'm also thinking of you know a couple months ago We had Ari Hart on the show who owns elements MMA Shut off to Ari and you know, he his school offers taekwondo and his school offers BJJ

in his school offers Muay Thai. The rankings are different. They're different classes. It's the true kind of mixed martial arts definition that we've talked about on the show. And so, you know, you get ranking in Taekwondo because you go into Taekwondo classes, but you don't wear your Taekwondo belt at BJJ, you get ranked in BJJ separate. And my understanding is there's no requirement that you have to go to a modern one. Correct. You could pick and choose, absolutely. Yep. But again, he's teaching separate arts, you're getting separate rankings. And often from separate instructors. Absolutely, yeah.

Jeremy (12:29.008)

Hmm.

Jeremy (12:33.646)

Let's come at this from a different angle because you kind of hinted at an example that I want to beat up kind of beat up a little Sure, absolutely this idea that things are separate But now they're trained together and We could argue the distribution of the curriculum Does not support the progress right, it is clear from what you're talking about that karate is the

Jeremy (13:04.01)

In your school. Yep. It's a karate school, right? It's yeah, it's not a karate and Aikijitsu and Kabuto school Correct, even though it is. Yes. Yep. Yep so I Would look at that as an outsider and say Well, if the other two things are important Why aren't they given more attention and if they're not important? Why do they remain? So the argument would I would make the argument that?

Why do they remain? Because it's still part of our karate training. That it is there and it's still part of it, but you're not ranked separately in it. So the ranking maybe has fallen away. Yes, yeah, yeah. Because he doesn't, my instructor doesn't have a separate Aikijitsu class or a separate weapons class, people don't progress in those ranks. Which is why I couldn't remember what official rank I am in weapons, because...

We don't do it anymore and it was a surprise and it was also a surprise test like wasn't even a test it was I'm now officially giving you rank which he has never he's never ranked anyone in weapons before So it's kind of a new thing interesting. All right

Jeremy (14:17.898)

Let's talk about where some of these benefits would be in separating this stuff beyond choice because I think there is benefit beyond my personal predilections to what I want to train. We could talk about priority, which is kind of the other piece, but it's also focus. If I, if you show up.

to this episode of Martial Arts Radio, and we're not talking about martial arts, it's gonna be weird. Even if it's something you wanna watch or listen to. If this suddenly turned into, Andrew and Jeremy are gonna have an episode where they talk about... Plants.

There's an avocado right here. Even if you love plants, it would be kind of weird. It would be weird, right?

Jeremy (15:13.81)

If I give you a beer, yes, that's a cider. If you're expecting a beer.

That first sip is going to hit you funny, right? Even though I know you enjoy ciders and beers, right? Same thing with training. If you show up expecting one thing and you get another, it makes it very difficult to prepare. Yeah. If I know that maybe I could train striking today, but not grappling or not weapons, but I could do this. It can help me.

Maintain my relationship with the school and get as much training as possible because let's face it Different types of training bang you up in different ways. Yeah. Well and it also for the Instructor it allows you to compartmentalize a little bit what you're gonna be working on right? It makes it I Don't know that easier is the right word simpler for some instructors. Maybe it would make it easier, but yes simpler, but you know You're gonna be working on this thing and then you know in your you know separate

uh weapons class like you know you're gonna be working on this curriculum or you know grappling or whatever There's a paralysis in choice if you if you can choose if this class could be anything yeah, what happens with most instructors they tend to do the same few things over and over again because It's what they're used. That's what they're used to doing but if I just tell them and we actually talk about this in the matic level two curriculum if we just

kind of narrow that down a little bit and say, okay, we need to do some stuff that advances the forms training or the grappling training or the weapons training, you know, on this cadence, oh, we could do this, and this. Yeah, right. And I think most instructors, most people, you know, when they have too many choices, right, we struggle with that. As an interesting aside, most people can handle three to five choices. Psychology of choice is something I find really interesting. And...

Jeremy (17:18.342)

lost my train of thought a little bit, but pulling it back. When we have separate classes, everybody's on the same page. I don't have to worry about exacerbating that injury. I can continue training in the ways that make sense. But that requires, to flip it back, that requires some diligence and some willingness to, as if I'm gonna be the best martial artist I can be, requires going to some classes that maybe I don't wanna go to. Yep, yep. And I think...

Here's another way to look at it. Let's say we have a school that has a separate karate class, a separate Aikido class, separate weapons class, but they don't give ranking for Aikido or Aikijitsu and weapons. Separate rank. They don't give separate rank. You just get your rank in karate. And if you give choice to the students, the students might say, you know what? I just want to go to weapons, because I really like weapons, which is great. But...

you're if you know if they never go to the karate class how are you going to rank them because you don't give separate rankings maybe they don't you know you have a big school and you just want to offer lots of things to your students which is great um and that's where i would typically see this you have a larger school like small schools have you know maybe a little bit more difficult time doing this but you know you want to offer different things for your students but you run the risk of students

Only choosing like we said earlier the things that they really want to do But if you're not ranking them separately in those things they really want to do how do you rank them in? In this example karate, yeah, if they're not actually ever coming to karate class, you don't they're only coming to weapons class You don't and I don't think that's necessarily bad But I think what it really comes down to like everything else we talk about is the why right? This is why this is the first freedom in the six freedoms of martial arts, you know train

how, when, where, why, with whom you want, because we all have different goals. And this is an interesting subject because it's not just the goals of the students, it's the goals of the instructor. Any school owner, any instructor has goals. I want my students to be this, right? Most of us, in fact, I would venture to say all of us, at some point, if we started teaching, have said, it is important to me that my students are

Jeremy (19:42.882)

this or have this or do less of that in contrast to an experience they had with their instructors. I don't know very many instructors. In fact, I don't know of any. There may be some who have said my instructor is perfect in the way they break down the curriculum and run drills and I want to do everything as close to perfect exactly like that is possible. Yeah.

You cannot progress without change, no growth without change, right? So you wanna make your students better than you came up, so you're gonna make some changes there. And if those goals line up with how you are breaking these things down, I think that's fine. But I do think that there needs to be a balance between my understanding as a student of what I am stepping into. With...

your understanding of what I don't even know, what I don't know, I don't know, and how I'm reaching my goals along the same path as your goals as the instructor. Yeah. Yeah, I can get behind that. Yeah, I would agree.

Anything else we want to? No, I mean, here's what I'm curious about. I'm curious how your school does it. I would love for you to message me, email me. Go to Facebook. Facebook, Facebook group, martial arts radio, page. Wherever you find a place to leave some comments would be great. Public is always preferred, but if there's stuff you want to share privately, that's fine. You can also, if you want to reach out to Andrew, andr

Because we want to know how you do it at your school. You know, this is the sort of thing that I kind of wish we had survey data on. Yeah. And maybe we will do some survey data on that through the Whistlekick Report, which is back going again after a five year hiatus. I'm excited. And...

Jeremy (21:45.122)

I think there's some value in us knowing how everybody's doing this. Cause I know big schools are more likely to break it up because they can. Smaller schools are less likely. I teach one class a week. I'm not breaking anything up. No, no, no. All right. Come to forms class and in three weeks we'll have a sparring class, right? That's not going to work for me.

But again, with this format, this two schools of thought, we're not saying right or wrong here. What we are saying as we always do is you should think about it. If you haven't thought about it, take some time to think about it. If you haven't thought about it lately, spend some more time to think about it. And make sure that what you're doing lines up with your why. As an instructor, is what you're teaching, how you're teaching lining up with your goals for your students. And make sure you're evaluating your students in some way, and I don't just necessarily mean testing.

to make sure that you are achieving your goals for them. As a student, are the classes you're taking helping you reach your martial arts goals? If not, figure out why and see what you can do about that. Yep. All right, cool. If you have a topic suggestion for these two schools of thought, don't be afraid to reach out to us. If you have questions, comments, feedback, guest suggestions, other topic suggestions, we wanna hear them as well. For social medias at Whistlekick, I already told you the email addresses, go to whistlekick.com, grab something using the code

Show up to one of our events, buy some things, tell friends, be a good person. Yeah, I get behind that. Don't be a putz. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day. Don't be a putz. Yeah. That's pretty good life advice. I would agree.