1. What is easier to learn? A hook kick or a sidekick? I say the hook kick.
Which do you teach first? I’ve always taught sidekick first. Why? Because it’s always been taught that way.
In truth, when you are teaching hook kick, most students are actually doing a low hook kick. Why? It’s a more natural movement.
2. What is easier to learn? A spinning hook kick or a spinning back kick? I say the spinning hook kick.
Which do you teach first? I’ve always taught spinning back kick. Why? Because it’s always been taught that way. The reality is that most kids can do a spinning hook kick on their first day in class.
3. As white belts in your school, do students have to first learn the basic tradition blocks and stances before they move into more applicable strikes and kicks? Why?
Traditional anything is more complex (not more advanced) than most any strike or kick. The application of traditional material is also harder to grasp for the new student.
Do the traditional arts have value? Yes! Absolutely. It’s just a bit of a hard sale to retain a new student when he is hit with this kind of complexity right out of the gate.
For the past few years, I have been working on a curriculum that makes teaching and learning martial arts easy.
Rather than spreading practice time over dozens, if not hundreds of techniques, we focus on a much smaller amount of techniques so we can spend more time on each.
The idea is that if you spend 45 minutes practicing a half-dozen techniques in various applications your students will feel much more progress than if you spend that class teaching or reviewing a 24-move kata.
We call a month a Module. Each month the focus of the module changes:
Three Modules = One Term
Term One
1. Kickboxing
2. Weapons / Ground
3. Martial Arts
Term Two
1. Kickboxing
2. Weapons / Ground
3. Martial Arts
Term Three
1. Kickboxing
2. Weapons / Ground
3. Martial Arts
Term Four
1. Kickboxing
2. Weapons / Ground
3. Martial Arts