What do you think of beginners' courses?

Doug Cartel

These questions are mainly aimed at people running clubs.

Does your club run specific beginners courses? Not just a beginner friendly class, but a course with a fixed start date a very clear lesson progression, focused on teaching them the basic skills before they can take part in a regular class. Also - if applicable to your art - maybe grading them on their first belt.

If so, what kind of a difference has this made to student retention numbers?

How long do you run the courses? How often?

What do you do about students that want to join up after a course has started up?

What if students drop out mid course? How does it affect the ones that remain?

Probably a touchy subject, but what's your opinion on "eating costs"? Eg do you feel it's worth selling them some basic equipment at below cost, or paying for their first grading, etc. so that you can offer the course as a package with a more attractive price?

CIARAN_BOYLE

Doug Cartel wrote: »

These questions are mainly aimed at people running clubs.

Does your club run specific beginners courses? Not just a beginner friendly class, but a course with a fixed start date a very clear lesson progression, focused on teaching them the basic skills before they can take part in a regular class. Also - if applicable to your art - maybe grading them on their first belt.

If so, what kind of a difference has this made to student retention numbers?

How long do you run the courses? How often?

What do you do about students that want to join up after a course has started up?

What if students drop out mid course? How does it affect the ones that remain?

Probably a touchy subject, but what's your opinion on "eating costs"? Eg do you feel it's worth selling them some basic equipment at below cost, or paying for their first grading, etc. so that you can offer the course as a package with a more attractive price?

I don't run a club but I am in a college club and every september we get a huge number of beginners and our instructor goes back to basics for everyone for a few weeks. Its good to get a recap for all.

Michael O Leary

Doug Cartel wrote: »

These questions are mainly aimed at people running clubs.

Does your club run specific beginners courses? Not just a beginner friendly class, but a course with a fixed start date a very clear lesson progression, focused on teaching them the basic skills before they can take part in a regular class. Also - if applicable to your art - maybe grading them on their first belt.

If so, what kind of a difference has this made to student retention numbers?

How long do you run the courses? How often?

What do you do about students that want to join up after a course has started up?

What if students drop out mid course? How does it affect the ones that remain?

Probably a touchy subject, but what's your opinion on "eating costs"? Eg do you feel it's worth selling them some basic equipment at below cost, or paying for their first grading, etc. so that you can offer the course as a package with a more attractive price?

Hi Doug,

We started up a specific beginners course last year and it has worked really well. The aim of the course is to give students a foundation in both self-defence and Wing Tsun. We also wanted students to feel comfortable joining the school where beginners are training with others the same level as themselves.

The beginners class and the regular class train in the same area however they are seperate classes with seperate instructors. The beginners class has a set syllabus and the main emphasis is to teach simple to learn techniques against some of the most common attacks in a self-defence situation.

The beginners course consists of 12 classes which is repeated in a cycle 4 times. This means that the first time a student learns a technique it will feel a little strange but by the 4th time that they practise it they spend less time concentrating on how to do the technique.

As each cycle has 12 classes and there are 4 cycles, the beginners course lasts six months if the student attends class twice a week or 1 year if they attend once a week. Also there are 12 student grades in Wing Tsun before blackbelt. When students finish the beginners course they will have passed 1st and 2nd grade.

Also the main thing about the beginners is that it is a constant work in progress. We review how things are going and make little changes when necessary and I am not ashamed to say that I get ideas from other members of boards as well as from my own international organisation.

Regards,

Michael
www.wingtsun.ie

Dermighty

When I joined there wasn't a focus on the basics, it was exceptionally frustrating and really only serves to get rid of people who don't have a large amount of patience, a bad way to do it in my opinion.

Things have changed with time and I think that any club that's serious about keeping members need to have a structure in place.

Doug Cartel

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

I don't run a club but I am in a college club and every september we get a huge number of beginners and our instructor goes back to basics for everyone for a few weeks. Its good to get a recap for all.

Yeah that's the usual procedure, but I'm talking about having a specific beginners course, run almost like a university module.