teaching and learning
Nov. 9th, 2015 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kirkcudbrightT: Monday night, I taught meditation. (By which I mean I led the meditation group, because Andy wasn't there, and Ken didn't feel like it, having done it the week before. Okay, sure, no problem.)
L/T: Tuesday night was square dance. I took the course last semester, but this semester I'm an "angel" (club member who dances with class members), because, hell yes I need the review.
T: Thursday night I taught aikido, because both of the regular instructors were down in Providence, where Sensei was teaching at Brown U. Lacking any better idea, it was all tsuki (stomach punch) all the time, but we have many techniques against that. And I remembered I actually like teaching - helping the beginners get the feeling of the technique and the feeling of their own power, and helping the more advanced students get some of the subtleties of the technique.
T: Friday morning, I was a new-volunteer mentor at Nevins Farm, teaching a couple of the cat-room volunteers about life in the barn (mucking stalls, cleaning the chicken coop). A couple weeks ago, I trained one of the other volunteers to be a mentor ("just talk through the stuff you're doing anyway").
L: Saturday morning is figure skating. We don't have the really awesome coach this time, but this one's okay, and each coach picks up on (and picks on) different things, so I suppose it's all good. I've been doing this for 13 years, and am starting to not suck at it, but I'd kind of like to suck even less. Skating, aikido, and square dance are all things I've done mostly once a week for the time I've been doing them, so testament to the power of Just Showing Up.
L: Friday and Sunday, I went to the MIT Kokikai Aikido fall seminar with Sensei. Sunday afternoon, he taught all the "secret" techniques, including one Dave hadn't seen in about 20 years. Cool stuff. The classes were more than half black belts, so really super good practice. It was after last year's seminar that I decided to join the Charles River dojo, after being mostly off the mat for 6 years. So good. At the end of this afternoon's class (while the Juijitsu class was patiently waiting to take the mat), Sensei called up selected black belts to demo freestyle, including me (to my surprise, but we'll roll with it). So somewhere there's video of me tossing around Jay, my current instructor. Cool.
L/T: Tuesday night was square dance. I took the course last semester, but this semester I'm an "angel" (club member who dances with class members), because, hell yes I need the review.
T: Thursday night I taught aikido, because both of the regular instructors were down in Providence, where Sensei was teaching at Brown U. Lacking any better idea, it was all tsuki (stomach punch) all the time, but we have many techniques against that. And I remembered I actually like teaching - helping the beginners get the feeling of the technique and the feeling of their own power, and helping the more advanced students get some of the subtleties of the technique.
T: Friday morning, I was a new-volunteer mentor at Nevins Farm, teaching a couple of the cat-room volunteers about life in the barn (mucking stalls, cleaning the chicken coop). A couple weeks ago, I trained one of the other volunteers to be a mentor ("just talk through the stuff you're doing anyway").
L: Saturday morning is figure skating. We don't have the really awesome coach this time, but this one's okay, and each coach picks up on (and picks on) different things, so I suppose it's all good. I've been doing this for 13 years, and am starting to not suck at it, but I'd kind of like to suck even less. Skating, aikido, and square dance are all things I've done mostly once a week for the time I've been doing them, so testament to the power of Just Showing Up.
L: Friday and Sunday, I went to the MIT Kokikai Aikido fall seminar with Sensei. Sunday afternoon, he taught all the "secret" techniques, including one Dave hadn't seen in about 20 years. Cool stuff. The classes were more than half black belts, so really super good practice. It was after last year's seminar that I decided to join the Charles River dojo, after being mostly off the mat for 6 years. So good. At the end of this afternoon's class (while the Juijitsu class was patiently waiting to take the mat), Sensei called up selected black belts to demo freestyle, including me (to my surprise, but we'll roll with it). So somewhere there's video of me tossing around Jay, my current instructor. Cool.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-09 05:56 pm (UTC)