Saturday, March 1, 2014

Teaching

Back felt better than yesterday, but still not right. I arrived early and it looked like it was just going to be a couple of newish white belts. That was fine with me, as I didn't relish the thought of teaching a big class. I was hoping a higher belt would show up to teach, but no. Just a lot more white belts, a couple of blues and a visiting purple from Maryland. I couldn't very well ask him to teach, so...Damn. I considered just making it an open mat, but there were a couple of very new white belts (father and daughter) and I didn't think an hour and a half of rolling would be a good idea.

I had decided ahead of time that I was going to show DLR passes b/c I was most comfortable with those. I started off showing how to pop the hook, and then the leg drag. But I didn't do an actual leg drag, because I'm an idiot. Instead of dragging the leg across the hip, I was sinking down on top of the shin. It would still sortof work, but it was wrong. All I can say is brain fart, and I haven't drilled that particular move in a few weeks. As I was walking around, the purple belt was helping a couple of the guys by doing an actual leg drag. I asked him to show the entire class, b/c it was way better than what I was showing. Ugh.

I got it together though after that and showed the dive under pass, which went much better. I did the tripod sweep after that b/c I wanted to pick something relatively simple for the white belts. 

Rolling at the end. I sat out the first round, then easy rolls with Nick, Sam (w), Ryan and Ian. My back did ok during rolls, but there was a fair amount grimacing on my part. I wasn't explosive at all and played a very defensive game with Ryan and Ian. I did manage to get to their backs a couple of times, but spent a fair amount of time in my favorite place, bottom side-control. 

So after that little foray into teaching, I'm not so sure that teaching a basics class is a good idea. I felt deeply unqualified today. 

2 comments:

SavageKitsune said...

Don't worry, everybody has those brain farts.

One of the things that we often do at my school when one of us has to teach is to grab the most senior person in the room (even if it's a white belt) before class and quickly run through what we're planning to teach and make sure everything is smooth. If the demo dummy is experienced enough to give feedback, we can ask, "how's that? any suggestions?"

Relax On The Mat said...

That is a brilliant idea. I really thought that I knew the pass better than I did, so didn't bother with prep. If/When I teach again, I'm definitely following your advice.