Aikido Exercises for Teaching and Training
Jul 4th, 2007 by Jason
I’ll come back and add to this when I get a chance.
Back!
The book appears to be written by a student of the Virginia Ki Society and takes a very ‘educationalist’ approach, breaking explanations down and often providing several different approaches or analogies. It seems to me this would be a very good resource for an instructor beginning to teach a children’s class. Whether or not it is useful to a new instructor in an adult class depends on how the class is run.
Where I practice now it is unlikely that someone would be in a position to teach an adult class without already possessing the necessary skills. However, if they were asked to teach a junior’s class a different approach would be required. Some McDojo’s allow instructors to teach a set syllabus from about 3rd kyu (where this grade can be achieved within a fairly short space of time). For the junior instructor I believe this book could be useful.
On challenging preconceptions:
Q. Isn’t Aikikai hard? Ki Aikido soft? Yoshinkan too stiff?
In working with advanced students, who presumable represent their respective styles, the most softly effective technique I ever felt came from Aikikai, the hardest and stiffest from Ki Society, one of the most graceful and flowing from Yoshinkan.
Good answer!