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Old 03-24-2006, 02:03 PM   #3
MaryKaye
Dojo: Seattle Ki Society
Location: Seattle
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 522
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Re: Beginners Retention Rates

We noted that a lot of beginners were daunted by forward rolls, and experimented with omitting forward rolls from the Intro curriculum (our seven-session course for brand new beginners).

I don't think it helped at all; it annoyed the more athletic beginners, and people who were going to be driven away by forward rolls maybe stayed a few more weeks, but they still left.

The biggest thing I have personally noticed is that retention is worse in Intro during terms when it was small to begin with. Students feel lonely if there are too few of them. You can partially cover this by asking more advanced students to come, but at some point you lose the sense that it's an Intro class at all--the beginners start feeling that they are slowing the advanced students down, and you might as well just have had them come to open classes in the first place.

Mary Kaye
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