The Free class

I just saw an inspirational piece on the news today about this guy that started a free Tennis Class in New York and now it's grown almost into an organization with grants and with many volunteers who mentor kids and their day jobs are lawyers and doctors. This is the kind of thing I always wanted to do with Kung Fu. I always thought, "I want to build a school like that." Then I thought, "There are plenty of buildings and organizations that do this kind of outreach so all I really need to do is work with those organizations and teach Kung Fu there." Of course those classes never really worked out exactly the way I wanted. I wouldn't call them failures. I would just say, I wanted more out of the kids or, I pushed myself too hard (like teaching for five hours with Jonah tagging along) or not enough kids showed up (like Mission park). And the overall energy of my students was complacent.
But this guy just showed me what I already knew. I can just do the thing outside and still be a success.
Now I already have a free class, but it is an out of the way place at an out of the way time. Which means I don't have a lot of students. But that is actually good for me right now because the class has to fit Jonah's needs. But soon that class will have to switch to the weekend because the kids will start school and it's getting me to think more about where I want the class, what time, and how serious I want the kids to train. It would be great to have a class that sort of culminated in the Chinatown Chinese New Year Parade, so that the kids and parents felt that there were practicing towards something. It would also justify why we practice outside. After all the parade is outside and sometimes in the Snow, so don;t be a wimp about "weather conditions." (Obviously though if it is raining I would still probably cancel class. (Or maybe just wear the rain coats and let people decide for themselves if they want to show up or not. Anyway. my gears have been turning with regards to this idea again.