Teaching new people new techniques

[AngelaG]

What's your take on teaching your new students the foundation techniques? Do you think it's better to get them doing an approximation of the technique first, and then later as they develop start to tweak it so that it's correct; or to work on one aspect first, such as feet positioning, then once they've got that knock it all down and start on another aspect such as hips etc. or alternatively to try and teach them the whole correct technique right from the start, and then later work on flowing it together and building speed?

[nkudahc]

i don't do much of teaching new students but it seems to me that it might have to be different for each one depending on how they learn the best

[AngelaG]

Not necessarily. One may be a better teaching method than the other, or a preferred teaching method. Furthermore if running a class full of several people it's not really possible to teach each independently.

[nkudahc]

thats a great point, i guess at my school we don't have that many brand new beginners at a time so they usually take them off to the upper deck until the start to get the hang of techniques

[random]

I have always found it is good to get them, new people, to be able to do something approximating a stance and a block then build on that, usually front stance down block, then over time develop that raw basic technique into something better and more accurate.

I think that this probably gets the student motivated and gives them a sense of achievement which is continual and measurable keeping the targets at a manageable and attainable.

After all what is perfection and who has achieved it?

[AngelaG]

random said:

After all what is perfection and who has achieved it?

[dickclark]

There needs to be enough feed back for error correction before the bad habits are set in hard. It is one thing to do something wrong, and know it is wrong, than to do it wrong thinking it is right. Once you think you know something it gets imprinted pretty quick. You need to let them know what is wrong and just as important what is right.
One should not be too harsh, but you should not let errors go bye. Use a positive comment in a negative outcome, let them know that it is 'getting there' or 'better'. Other wise you create the false impression that they are doing it correctly, and when someone else corrects them they will feel confused and angry.
Just my thoughts.........

[Aefibird]

I agree - better to correct problems early (but not in a harsh "you're-doing-it-all-wrong" manner!) than to have a student 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, whatever, later who is making glaring errors in their basic technique but have only just been corrected on it. It's dead easy to slip into the wrong way of doing something but dead hard to slip out of that way of doing it again.

[Sionnagh]

IMHO it's better to get them started and moving and give feedback and correction, but not overload them with detail nor leave them too long without correction if they're doing something incorrectly. I also think that this may be more of an issue if there is little or no partner exercises which makes another avenue for feedback and correction available to them.


Mick