Karate and E-Newsletter Categories

This edition talks about why you should separate your list into catoegories.

My daughter Jacqueline enthusiastically practices Kenpo with hundreds of girls and boys at Callahan’s Karate. A year ago, she started out as a white belt – that’s the 1^st level for beginners. Even though she’s only required to go twice a week, she has the option to go more frequently if the spirit moves her (and if one of us drives her). It turns out that she loves it so much, that going three times a week is a fairly regular occurrence. And besides that, she often asks to stay so she can watch the older kids who spar, kick and throw their way through more complicated and more powerful punches. Now 12 months into the program, she progressed from white belt to yellow belt and recently she graduated to her orange belt. However, even with a year’s training under her belt, she’s still classified as a beginner. She’s a bit humbled by this (read: she's a frustrated 9 year old) and she frequently has the desire to jump ahead.

• keep it simple
• start with the basics
  
• break it up into chunks
  

If your students are longtime clients:

• give them advice to

• evaluate
  
• improve
  
• plan for success

So for now, Jacqueline’s frustrated but understanding. She’s dissappointed yet hopeful. Thankfully, she’s a willing student who’s learning through Kenpo that there are different levels and different categories. So for right now, that’s enough of a lesson. Later on I’ll teach her about how there are even more categories in the world like different personality types (i.e. Enneagram and Myers Briggs), and completely new territory like the categories of boys vs. girls. So I won’t overwhelm her with all that – she is, afterall, just a beginner on her 9^th family belt.