COVID-19 Transition
I know that it’s been a while since I posted. I don’t have much in the way of excuses. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have transitioned from group classes to private lessons in the past couple of months. As we all know, we are…
Lockdown Routine
To my martial arts friends, how have you kept your martial arts training since the lockdowns started? Here is a list of what I’ve done: How about you? What kind of training are you doing? Is anything different from my list? Now, some of my…
Post Lockdown Thoughts
During these unprecedented times, martial arts instructors have to think about their short term futures, after the lockdowns are gradually eased, and we return to teaching. But, first, what is the definition of “short term future” in the context of these times? For me, the…
Tribute To Alan
I learned on Saturday morning that one of my favourite private clients, Alan, passed away at 84. I first met him through a senior citizens’ self-defence course I taught for the City of Oshawa in 2008. The classes were held at the Legends Community Centre….
Rebooting The Blog
I know that it’s been a while since I’ve done a blog post. It’s been a busy few months. For one thing, the website has been going through a re-design, complete with a new logo that I hope reflects my martial arts business personality. More…
A New Beginning
Welcome to the new revamped Bamboo Spirit Website and a new beginning! First, I would like to thank Jason Fletcher for his original Bamboo Spirit logo design. It was a great design that served Bamboo Spirit well for nearly a decade. However, as the martial…
Taking Advantage of Technology
A year ago, my MacBook needed to be repaired at the local Best Buy. To keep my social media efforts going, I ordered a Chromebook from Amazon. This was delivered within a couple of days. The purchase came with one terabyte of free memory on…
Breakout Groups Or Not?
I’ve been experimenting with teaching classes with and without breakout groups. I think that breakout groups arranged by rank/skill level can be beneficial in a class setting. However, lately, I’ve begun to reconsider whether breakout groups are all that beneficial from an instructor’s perspective. Teaching…
Downsizing
Recently, my wife and I downsized from our house in Oshawa to a townhouse in Ajax. The new place has half the square footage of our former house. This entailed a massive amount of purging before the move, starting in October and we are still going…
How Hard Do You Really Train?
I taught the inaugural class at the Harmony Martial Arts Center in Pickering on Friday night. For a Friday night time slot of 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm, I had a turnout of 7. Not bad at all. After getting some housekeeping out of the way,…
