Once we moved into the new dojang space, parents began asking about the resumption of Saturday classes. There are too many things going on after school during the week right now with school holiday concerts and programs, and Christmas shopping, that many of them wanted to be able to shift one of their kids weekday classes to Saturday. We had over 35 requests, so today we scheduled two classes: a beginner/intermediate class at 10 a.m. and an advanced class at 11:30.

Two students showed up for the beginner class; Damien (who is actually working hard on personal accountability and responsibility, perhaps because his parents confiscated his car keys and license until he gets his shit together) and a new adult student (who was obviously terrified at the lack of other students to hide behind and the possibility of so much one on one attention.)

In the advanced class: Alex, Rachel, Kevin, and a brand new brown belt who was over the top excited about the amount of instruction he was going to get. Alex worked with Kevin and Rachel, helping them hone the forms they need to test for black belt, and I focused on Ram... that's his nickname, obviously; he earned it in the first few weeks of training that involved contact, when his primary self defense technique was to ram his head into the stomach of his attacker. He's small for his age (he and Kevin are close in age and physical size) and he just went with what he thought would work. The other kids started calling him Ram--which to him was a badge of honor--and it stuck.

Initially, I was annoyed at the turnout this morning. So many parents begged for us to have classes on Saturdays, at least through the holidays, yet they couldn't be bothered to show up. My annoyance was tempered by the reminder from my better half that we would have been at the dojang either way, since the kids wanted to work on their forms; we have black belt testing slated for the middle of January, and Kevin and Rachel have made it their goal to be ready by then. Alex is eligible to test for his 2nd degree but isn't sure he'll be ready by then (he will be; he's harder on himself than anyone else could be) but he's working on it to keep his options open.

In the end, it was nice to have the time to focus on just those few students; there's a lot to be said for small class sizes. It was good for Damien to be in a class alone with an adult female student; he worked over time on how he spoke to her (I lost count of the number of times "ma'am" came out of his mouth) and he was eager to help her learn her form. It also gave me a better idea of how to work with him: most of the time that kid is full of shit and tries too hard to be the big guy, but without anyone else around he's friendly and helpful, and I was amazed at the respect he knows how to display. That gives me something to tap into.

Ram is a fun kid to teach. He soaks everything up like a sponge, and the sweat equity he's putting in on learning is just fun for him. He doesn't complain about the fifth set of pushups or the burn of lunges; he just does them so that he can get to the real class. He loves learning new forms and accepts critique so well that it doesn't feel like teaching.

All in all, it's a shame we can't give that kind of individual attention to each and every student.