I have to say I am somewhat disappointed by the experience we have had here so far. No doubt that the venue is popular, judging by the number of students attending the classes, and the coaches do appear motivated and run the classes so that many children are engaged.
Having said that, neither of my two young daughters felt very happy after their trial classes. After having noticed this rather negative sentiment following the first trial, when I could see that my youngest daughter had been paired with her older (taller and stronger) sister, as well as another older, taller and stronger girl, leading to my younger one feeling overwhelmed and unfairly matched, I specifically and repeatedly asked one of the coaches the second time around to please split my daughters up and pair them with someone of a similar height, weight and age to themselves.
To my great surprise, my two uneven girls were still asked to spar together for probably 45 mins of the hour-long class, which was not too much fun for either, as it was too easy for the older one (Who ended up dominating her younger sister almost like a bully would, by simply following the instructions and sitting on her for whole minutes), and too hard and a bit terrifying for the younger one, who was basically being put into submission by her elder sibling. All the while the coaches were present but not noticing these unhelpful dynamics playing out.
Yes, of course, in real life there will be plenty of situations when a bully is substantially bigger and stronger than you are, and it is predominantly for these situations that you have to prepare for so that you can still defend yourself, but it does not help a lot with a student's still growing self-esteem if the task faced during training looks consistently overwhelming to them.
To be fair, towards the end of the second session, my daughters were eventually paired up with someone else, and that looked more even to me. The boy who the younger one was grappling with was very sweet and let her "win" a few times, even though he was evidently more experienced than her, which was a great example of how to increase a new, weaker student's motivation.
At home, we talked about it all, and while both daughters had no problems recollecting the techniques they had been taught, when we "play-fought" together, neither of them were very enthusiastic at all when I asked them if they wanted to continue going to these classes.
Now that our trial is about to run out, we will have to make a decision whether to sign up for a much more expensive membership, or let it be. It's hard for me, as I would love to see them continue, but at the same time it would be counterproductive if they did not look forward to the experience. What would you do?
Posted 1 year ago
