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Krystal Locke · 01-24-2012, 08:42 PM

My dojo is becoming very extremely top heavy, a lot. This brings up three questions for me.

1. How to get new students in the door. Age old problem, I know. Economy, I know. What works for your school?

2. How to effectively transition adult students from playing with the shiny new aikido toy to practicing aikido for the long haul. Especially when it becomes very obvious to the newbs that they are sorely outranked by everybody else in the school. We have one underbelt student below second kyu. If a new person walks in, they are the only person on the mat not in a hakama. That's gotta be intimidating.

3. How to transition kids from the very full and successful kids class into the adult class, in which they are no longer the big kid on the mat, and after which we do not play samurai tag. I personally find training with the kids who have moved into the adult class frustrating. How can I make their transition smoother and more productive?

Can I get some success stories and some perspective?

01-24-2012, 08:42 PM	#1
Krystal Locke Location: Phoenix, Oregon Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 407 Offline	Three dojo management questions... My dojo is becoming very extremely top heavy, a lot. This brings up three questions for me. 1. How to get new students in the door. Age old problem, I know. Economy, I know. What works for your school? 2. How to effectively transition adult students from playing with the shiny new aikido toy to practicing aikido for the long haul. Especially when it becomes very obvious to the newbs that they are sorely outranked by everybody else in the school. We have one underbelt student below second kyu. If a new person walks in, they are the only person on the mat not in a hakama. That's gotta be intimidating. 3. How to transition kids from the very full and successful kids class into the adult class, in which they are no longer the big kid on the mat, and after which we do not play samurai tag. I personally find training with the kids who have moved into the adult class frustrating. How can I make their transition smoother and more productive? Can I get some success stories and some perspective?