Martial Arts Zoom Classes

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Over the last few months, I’ve been teaching five Zoom classes per week. The attendees consist mostly of students from the 6Tigers Academy and occasionally Bamboo Spirit students.

The seeds of my Zoom class experiences are due to a group of siblings, originally from Ottawa but now living in Florida. They are Karate and Arnis students of Shihan Janet Lawless of the 6Tigers Academy in Ottawa.

For fans of this blog, you’ll recall that I posted approximately 40 YouTube solo workout tutorials in the early days of the pandemic. Yes, I know that I haven’t done any videos since then…I just ran out of ideas and steam!

Anyway, Lisa and her kids in Florida became fans of my YouTube tutorials, and she would regularly message me videos of the kids working out to my videos. Really cool to see them motivated to learn arnis via YouTube tutorials!

Then I heard about “Zoom” from my sister and Shihan Janet. What in fresh hell is this? I soon found out. My first encounter with Zoom was a family meeting with my brother in Ohio and my sister in Seattle in May. Wow, talk about a user-friendly experience!

My wife and I also participated in an online Crowdcast (a video platform similar to Zoom) webinar in mid-May by a women’s group at the Durham College/Ontario Tech called “She Leads.” We were invited to share women’s self-defence tactics and safety tips. Our presentation went well, and I felt comfortable doing a live presentation over a video platform.

“Okay, let’s give Zoom a try,” I said.

At the end of May, I offered Zoom private lessons on Facebook. In response to this offer, Lisa asked if I would be interested in teaching private lessons for her three children, and the rest is history.

So, in June, I started teaching Lisa’s three kids privately on Zoom. For the entire summer, I taught just one Zoom class per week. This was my introduction to teaching on Zoom.

I’ll say right off the bat that Zoom classes are not a substitute for live classes. There is no question that I would prefer to teach live classes. But we live in unusual times, making Zoom classes necessary.

Let me tell you; it was quite challenging to teach three children via Zoom. Fortunately, the three kids are attentive, focused, and fun to teach. They made the job easy for me! Besides, my wife joined the fun and was a great help during the summer.

From an instructor’s perspective, I have benefitted from the Zoom classes as it has forced me to be more precise in my verbal instructions than I would have for the live classes.

An example would be coaching Rachel, Ebie, or Malik through footwork for any technique.

The live class version would consist of me standing next to any of them and simply saying, “Step this way, okay? Got it?” while simultaneously demonstrating the footwork. It works nearly all the time.

On the other hand, I quickly learned that it doesn’t work for Zoom classes. Instead, I now say, “Malik, step to the right with your right foot,” as I demonstrate in front of the camera, emphasizing the word “right.” Precision is the key.

As the summer progressed, I became more comfortable teaching on Zoom and polishing my verbal instructions. Additionally, I became more aware of the importance of my physical orientation to the camera. Some folks prefer I turn my back to the camera and demonstrate a technique. Others prefer a sideways presentation. Still, others prefer that I face the camera.

Sometime during the summer, Shihan Janet proposed that I teach the Ottawa Arnis classes through Zoom and invite the Bamboo Spirit students starting in September. While I teach the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday classes, we co-teach the Saturday classes. Often, she’ll take one group of students, and I’ll take another group. To date, it has worked very well.

What do I cover in these classes?

With two exceptions, all of the Zoom students attend classes by themselves. As a result, I emphasize solo training drills, techniques, and forms. Many of the solo training drills I teach are based on the YouTube tutorials mentioned earlier in this post. They require the students to visualize an attack and counter it. It’s different from working with a live training partner! Most importantly, the Zoom classes allow us to connect to others on a social basis, especially in these unprecedented times!

Through these experiences, I have learned the following:

1. Prepare for every class. Have clear objectives for the students.
2. Be specific in your instructions.
3. Ask the students how they would like me to demonstrate a technique. Frontal view? Turn my back to the camera. Or a sideways view? Different folks have different preferences.
4. Allow for some fun. As I mentioned, learning through Zoom is not the same as a live class. So let them have fun once in a while. For example, I’ll have the Florida kids engage in “Pirate Play” using Arnis techniques. It’s a blast watching them transform into Pirates!
5. Take advantage of the chat function of Zoom. I’ll have difficulty understanding a question due to poor audio quality. So I’ll ask them to type out the question. This has worked nearly every time!

I’m sure I will further fine-tune my Zoom teaching methodology during the next few months until the pandemic subsides. Furthermore, I do not doubt that this experience will improve my teaching in private and group classes.

Please share your thoughts on your Zoom class experiences for instructors and students!

Additional Reading

• YouTube, Zoom, and Cross-Training
• Pandemic Solo Training
• Seminar Weekend at Stronger You
• Closed Captioning on Zoom! Yeah, Baby!
• Back to Teaching!