Children's Class Weekly Re-Cap, Nov 7-9
Lil’ Leopards
In this past week’s Lil Leopards class we got to play with our parachute! Our parachute is always fun for the students, but it serves several other purposes. A high level of individual dynamic control is needed, as well as a strong commitment to team work, to manipulate the parachute into doing what we want. These skills will all be transferrable as the students progress through the ranks.
Tiny Tigers
In the Tiny Tigers class we utilized scarves to work on our opening bow. Our opening bow is a complicated sequence of techniques that opens and sets the pace for our many hand forms. Although we don’t start to learn the bow in it’s entirety until Young Dragons, it’s important to start working on the movements early, simply because it’s so complicated. The scarves add a colourful visual that make the movements a little more obvious as we learn. Although many students are not aware, our bow is also a unique “signature” to both our school and our lineage.
Young Dragons Level 1
For our Young Dragons 1 class, we carried on with the breakfalls and shoulder rolls from the previous week. In Kung Fu, there are certain skills that all of our students need to achieve in order to progress. But at the same time, we recognize that we are all unique individuals and we all learn just a little bit differently. When it comes to something like shoulder rolls, many students find them very intimidating, and so confidence is key.
With this in mind, we exposed the kids to a few different options to try and help boost their confidence in their forward shoulder rolls. Once we can get the kids to roll with confidence, then we can start tweaking and perfecting. And after only the one class, we were very pleased to see that all of the students were able to utilize at least one of the options to both improve their skill and increase their confidence.
Young Dragons Level 2
In Young Dragons Level 2 we did something a little different. Over the last couple weeks the students have really impressed us with their skill level with breakfalls, and so we decided to take the opportunity to expose them to some more “real life” situations in a safe and controlled environment. Using our “triangle stepping” application, the students were challenged with performing a proper breakfall after being tripped to the ground. Oftentimes, when practicing breakfalls, it is against our natural instinct to force ourselves to the ground. By having someone else force us to the ground (in this case still safely and controlled by the instructors) the students were able to feel how a breakfall would actually work in a more realistic application. All of the students improved significantly in just the one class. And now that they know how it would “really” feel, they can utilize that in future practice.
Special Announcements for All Classes
The next Open Training takes place Saturday November 25 from 10-12noon.
