First day at school

January 24th, 2008 at 18:08 · Filed Under Blogging, Karate 

Today is the first training day at school after the long year-end school holidays. All schools re-opened on January 3 but co-curriculum activities only begin this week. Many old members dropped out already. Today has 90+ students came to enroll themselves into the school karate club. What a big crowd! But again, they are interim. According to my teaching experience in school, by the next two weeks, the number will drop drastically to less than half. By another 2 to 3 weeks, the number will reduce half again. It’s fine for me and it is a healthy sign as the the filtering process will filter out casual members. I hope to spot one or two (or maybe a few) potential butterflies like Ong.

The process of registering their name with the school karate club committee was quite a mess as this was the first time for these 14-year-old teenagers to handle such a big crowd. Off course, I helped out by showing them what to do. At least I was able to train the other old members. Unlike last year, I alone handled more than 100+ head counts.

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2 Responses to “First day at school”

  • Selby Karateka on February 9th, 2008 21:06 1

    What do you do with so many beginners? It must be a nightmare? I hope to have about 10 begineers grade for the first time next weekend, this is out of about fourteen still training from an intake of about twenty in November. I would rather retain one member than gain ten new ones, what do you think is the answer?

  • Adrian Hoe on February 10th, 2008 9:17 2

    Hi Selby,

    It is a nightmare to handle so many alone. These students join out of curiosity and have no idea about karate training. They have fantasy like in the movies. Soon they will realize the training is hard and is nothing similar like their fantasy in the movies. They will leave and the numbers will drop. Those who retain will purchase gi but after a while, some will drop out before their first grading test. Some more will drop out after grading. Again some will drop out before the 2nd grading.

    I would rather have 1 student at a time but teaching one at a time is not economically viable in this modern world. But if the one student is really committed and progressing well on the scale, I will still teach this one student.

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