Ready, Fire… Aim.

Today’s kid’s class was full of basic acrobatic moves – cartwheels, somersaults, handstands, forward rolls and jumping kicks.  Because there was so much content in class, it was set up in such a way that I let the students try the move first for a minute or so (without much instruction) and then gave them advice on how to improve their technique.

It’s kind of a ready, fire, aim philosophy – you see what the students are doing and then you fix it.  Like any teaching philosophy, it has strengths and weaknesses but one of the nice things is that rather than anticipating what students will do correctly or incorrectly, you can watch what they are actually doing.  In addition, when you tell them to do a cartwheel (or whatever technique it is) they don’t have a particular technical aspect stuck in their mind – they are simply doing their best cartwheel.