What can I say but …WOW! Kaizen Martial Arts Australia first full house on the dojo floor, we could not have squeezed an additional person on the mats.
While I was teaching the children, my wife and club administration officer was flat out during the entire class working with parents to fit children up for gi’s and this means there are no photos of the class for this blog post, but not to worry there will be a ton more opportunities to post the photos.
The class did their normal stretching and warm ups and then we split the class into 3 separate sections, the first group worked on their forward rolls and their right hand side judo rolls across the mats from one end of the dojo to the other ( a few of the kids got a little dizzy by the end of the rolling but each and everyone of them was laughing and smiling ).
The second group were practicing their circular sideways movements with a partner and hula hoop (yes martial arts and a hula hoop) on the floor then after a period of time they swapped over and then the third group were learning about the importance of balance and how to shift and upset the balance of their opponent in order to gain strategic advantage when doing their Judo, this was achieved by the placements of ribbons on the ground which the children had to either avoid or touch depending on the instruction given, this was completed by using and breaking the other persons balance.
The groups swapped over at designated points so that they all got an opportunity to try each of the skill building exercises, then we moved into the second last stage of the evening which was a demonstration and review of the techniques covered and why they are so critical to learning their martial arts no matter whether that is Karate or Judo.
Of course we had to play a game to finish off the evening and many of the parents got involved and helped tag the kids with soft balls, the challenge for the kids was that they had to work as a team given they were in pairs and were connected by pieces of material, this was a great skill builder showing the children how to work as a team rather than as an individual.
We are going to have to seriously think of closing off attendance and creating a waiting list given this response, we are also in discussion with the Wyndham Community Learning Center about the possibility of getting more nights but because of how busy they already are we are not sure if this can happen… we will keep you posted on how this unfolds.
