This is a guest post about Silent Stretches by one of our outstanding, creative instructors, Sensei Nathan Jeffrey. He has developed a unique, innovative approach to get his class of children calm and focused before training. I have seen it in action, and it is super effective! Here is his post:
After playing a very vigorous game of double trouble at my new school at East Granville I needed a way for students to quickly identify myself as their new teacher. They were all sweaty, fired up and being rather loud which was great but not very conducive to what was meant to happen next, stretches. I needed the students to focus on me and calm down so they would be ready to practise karate.
I was faced with two options; I could either meet their noise with my own wall of sound or remain quiet.
I remained quiet.
Silent stretches are, as their name suggests, stretches with my class in total silence, with the exception of deep breaths. In order to ensure silent stretches are successful:
1. I need to be at the centre of the class so all the students can clearly see me.
2. I need to ensure that my silent stretches are exaggerated so that all students understand what part of the body they are stretching. For example, moving my hips in larger circles than needed and stopping the rotation of my arms for longer to denote that we are changing the way we need to rotate.
3. I need to establish quiet within the room. I do this by modelling silence because if you want your students to do something, you must do it yourself.
I’ve found that this way of doing stretches is useful for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, at a new school, where most students were unfamiliar with me, it allowed me to be established as the centre of attention. It identified me as the new teacher of the school and gave the students a focal point to look to. In choosing to remain quiet I modeled to the kids how I expected them to stretch. In remaining quiet and not raising my voice I modelled a calmness that helped the students focus and calm down.
There are two drawbacks that I’ve come across whilst using this method to begin my classes. The first drawback being that you can’t teach new techniques using this method. For example, I’ve found it difficult to go through Sensei Matt Klein’s new yoga stretches with my students. The other drawback is outside noises can undermine the effectiveness of calming students down and centring oneself as the teacher.
Silence is often overlooked as a tool we can use to teach and I think it’s much better to meet noise with calm and quietness. It also saves on the Strepsils’ bill.
In hushed whispers I hope to hear what you think about using silent stretches as a tool for teaching children martial arts.
Sensei Nathan Jeffrey
Sensei Nathan is a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Freestyle under Sensei Matt Klein. Sensei Nathan has a Bachelor of Education (Primary). He developed this technique on his own.
Fantastic post Sensei Nathan, keep those brilliant ideas coming!
Thanks a lot for giving me this opportunity, Sensei!
It is definitely very effective. Varying your tone of voice and volume is quite powerful in the dojo especially with the 3-5 year old age group where its hard to maintain their attention. I myself like to clap a rhythm for the class to copy and that works for me 🙂
You are most welcome Sensei Nathan. It is a superb idea and a great post, thanks for writing it!
Thanks for your insights Sensei Sinem, yes varying the tone and volume is another powerful tool and keeps the classes more dynamic. I am glad you know how to keep the attention of the little tiny tigers, as I don’t!
Shhhhhhh – I’ll whisper my reply as to keep your attention 😉
I use a mantra of “Stretching is quiet time – so we can focus on our stretches” usually, but yesterday I decided to adopt your alliteration “Silent stretching” with the following results:
1st class.. not really THAT successful – although this is the most challenging class to maintain attention as the kids are fresh out of school or Kindy and have been sitting down just before with so much energy to expel – also due to the age of the kids- attention span is significantly less than that of a 8 or 9 year old. The size of the class will also have an impact of using silence as a focal tool – yesterday the first class was 30+, so the time it was taking was too long to achieve complete silence and was counterproductive. In the younger classes I feel a more direct approach faster i.e. making a spectacle of yourself, being interesting or funny and moving quickly through things – this ensures keeping their attention and retaining them too – a lot of kids will not get the opportunity to develop that calmness as they may get bored and leave the program.
The second class – I found this very successful, the extra year or two in age makes a big difference in their ability to focus and comprehend; also the extended break from school lets them settle down naturally. Using only the two words silent stretching was very to the point and understood well.
As the day goes on each class after also did well with this, although each class moving later on in the evening has more focus and discipline (from the years of training at Karate and just from the students being older – always with a few exceptions 😉 ) – Although finding it successful towards the last 2 classes silence during stretching happened more without any prompting.
In a nut shell – I agree this CAN be a powerful tool – yet not for every job.
“Some jobs require a screw driver, others a hammer…. others a jack hammer”.
The “screw driver” may never replace the “jack hammer” as much as it may try.
Great feedback Sensei Zoltan! It is great to have the ability to “workshop” these great ideas and see how they are best implemented. Sensei Nathan tried this during the 4:45 PM class at Wentworthville, which also has about 30 students, and is one of the noisiest ones out there. He had complete quiet, in fact I was amazed at the quiet. It must be seen to be believed. I am a believer!