Sifu Noah

I ended up cancelling class today because of the weather, but I had promised to let Noah teach and to go over the class schedule with him. So we did and tried to have class inside the house.
 We came up with the following schedule.

1. Freestyle

2. sword

3. Song

4. Drawing

5. Exercise

6. Push hands

7. 100 Hits

8. Slow Spar

9. Meditation

10. Play

We got to number four and frankly, Noah really dragged our "class" down because he only wanted to watch at first while Dai Dai did everything. At some point I threatened to just stop the class and then he said he would do it. We ended up really just doing the regular class we usually do inside with drums etc. Which is fine. But here is what I have in mind for  using this schedule outside. After all , it gets me to see what activities Noah wants to do.

For Free style inside I had the kids do their Free style forms one at a time to the drum. I guess outside everyone can do their own Kung Fu. to warm up. Eventually, when my kids can carry their own stuff they can all go through the fist stick knife spear sword by themselves with their own equipment.

For Sword we will do drills with the pool noodles. Sparring each other in partners or relay style or both.

Song. This is the wheels on the bus and other games we do.

Drawing. This is doing journals with crayons When they are older I suppose they could actually write in their journals. It's a good way to take a break physically

Exercise. This is stuff like squats, push-ups, sit ups etc. Maybe even laps or running in place. Basic punches and kicks too. It can change week to week. Road work. 

Push hands. I'm going to make push hands a bigger part of our training. It will be done in pairs, and the main thing to focus on is actually just not to hurt each other. Even if the kids sacrifice the martial aspect of the drill that's better than having to stop people from doing it in a way that might hurt each other. And also it's just to difficult to make people do it a certain way. There is so many different kinds of push hands and sticky hands, and I noticed that most kids just want to do it without actually "learning" it and they actually won't hurt each other at all, as long as they go about it in that way. So it's not "real" push hands. But I realize that there is a lot to be gained from working in partners, trying to relax, and trying to stick to the other person. It's fun too.

100 hits. That's pretty self explanatory. But as they get older it can go up to 300 or something.

Slow Spar, This is slow motion play sparring. I guess you do real moves but you have to be slow and definitely make sure first and foremost not to hurt each other, probably even not touch each other. I noticed when children play like this, they can get a lot out of this without getting hurt. Besides full force and full speed are used with the pool noodles. 

Meditation. Probably not sitting mediation. Maybe this would also be done on your own and in your own way, either through poses movements, etc. The easiest thing is to just say, "Find your own space and meditate in your own way.

Play. This is just going and playing as the kids always do eventually anyway. But it's listed because it's also important part of group dynamics etc.

Originally I only wanted 5 things listed. But I guess as the kids get older we will be able to do more things. How long would this class of 10 things take? I think at least 2 hours unless everything was really rushed.