What Now?
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
What now?
2020 has been quite the year. Ontario went on a months-long lockdown from March through the end of August. At that time, the province started to relax COVID-19 restrictions in various regions, based on case numbers.
Unfortunately and this was foreseeable, cases started to rise again. At first, the province had pursued targeted lockdowns to flatten the curve or reverse the trend. Regrettably, case numbers have continued to rise and reached the point where hospitals in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) have pressed Premier Ford to impose a province-wide lockdown.
Long story short, Ontario entered a 28-day lockdown yesterday. Reading through the guidelines/ restrictions, it seems pretty clear that I will not be able to teach private lessons during this 28-day lockdown.
Keeping this in mind, I scrambled to reschedule a junior black belt test for my 15-year-old student, Miguel. I had initially scheduled it for January 7th. When I heard about the impending lockdown and his parents’ agreement, it was rescheduled for the morning of Christmas Eve.
Miguel smoked the test!
I started teaching him at 5 with children’s classes at the Legends Community Centre in Oshawa. Then due to his parents’ schedule, we shifted to once-a-week private lessons. He attended several seminars and workshops over the years to supplement the private lessons. His growth has just exploded in the last two years, making me very happy. Miguel is the personification of dedication!
Earlier this year, Miguel and several others were scheduled to test in front of Master of Tapi Tapi Chuck Gauss. Unfortunately, the combination of the lockdown and the closure of the USA-Canada border resulted in the cancellation of Master Chuck’s return visit to the area.
When we resumed training in September, he showed very little rust. I focused relentlessly on the 20 flow drills, left vs. right tapi tapi, groundwork, and joint locks. My goal was to test him for his junior black belt by the end of this year. As you can see, mission accomplished! I covered most of the above material during the test. The kid was on fire! I am so proud of him, particularly in his growth in the last two years. Testing him on Christmas Eve turned out to be perfect timing!
With that behind, I now return to the question of “what now?” in light of the current lockdown.
The lockdown is unfortunate as my students have made PHENOMENAL progress since we resumed private lessons in September. I hate to see the training momentum be halted for the time being. Hopefully, when we resume, they will have minimal rust, and we can keep on trucking. I have a burning desire to push them to higher skill levels to black belt.
Fortunately, with the downtime coming in the next 28 days, I have a couple of projects. The first project is sorting out a new series of empty hand flow drills to accompany my stick flow drills. Dref and I have been working on this project for the last couple of months. As many of you know, I have 20 stick flow drills. Before this project, I did not have an empty-hand equivalent. I decided I needed empty hand flow drills for my students incorporating Modern Arnis material. To date, we have come up with 25 flow drills. We aim to pare it down to about 20 and sort them in a teaching order.
Why? Simply put, I think that my students need something more interactive concerning empty-hand material than what I presently have. Plus, they must engage in play and have fun!
Next, is to come up with new Zoom class ideas. I feel like I’m starting to get into a rut. To avoid this, I’ll have to sit down and review my teaching material and see if there are areas that can be improved or broadened. As usual, stay tuned!
Lastly, for the duration of the 28-day lockdown, I’d like to develop more consistency in my social media efforts, especially with this blog and my YouTube channel.
As many of you know, I shot 40 Tutorial videos from March to June this year. The above is one of my favourite videos. In hindsight, I should have spread the videos out instead of publishing 3 to 4 weekly. By June, I ran out of steam and out of ideas. This time, I will try to slow down the pace. We’ll see how that goes.
To all reading this post, stay safe and healthy! Hopefully, we’ll all eventually stop having to say, “What now?”
Additional Reading
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