Times have changed. Not all students can come to your dojo so, with the right kind of video conferencing software, your dojo can come to them. A lot of your competition already have a web presence. A few of them even offer courses online, in the form of pre-recorded videos which teach theory and display practice. But not a lot of them utilise video call platforms to teach their long-distance students live. You can be one of the pioneers to take this step. Build an online dojo that students can video call to attend so that they can experience a higher quality of long distance learning for physical activities. To help you do so, we’ve compiled the list below.
Teaching students on a video call online brings its own, natural challenges. The last thing you need is to add more challenges to that video call. The right virtual meeting application offers you an abundance of options that are easy to use. For example, if one of your students is video calling from a lower bandwidth connection, Banty offers the option to manage video quality to avoid interruptions. The entire class can also simultaneously watch a YouTube video illustrating the finer points of a grappling technique, a block, or a strike. You can ask the whole class questions using the polling feature to save time and effort. You can even share your screen with your students to present some slides, or use the whiteboard to sketch out ideas, rough graphs or quick diagrams on the fly. And the best part? You can try all of that for free, for a full fourteen days.
Your dojo can be virtual for the students viewing you, but for you, it very much needs to be a physical dojo. Physicality and virtuality kind of form a unity of opposites, like Yin and Yang. They cannot exist without one another. The virtual process mimics the physical process. Without a fantastic physical experience, there can be no fantastic virtual experience, because there would be nothing to simulate.
A virtual dojo can be smaller than an actual dojo. Spacewise, what you need from a virtual dojo specifically is the space for two people to move as freely as they might need to, unless you’re teaching your students to tackle multiple attackers. You also need to ensure that your lessons are covered by a high quality camera, that your lighting is in top form and that your sound carries through fine.
Then again, if you have the space and its going unused, you could very much set up your virtual dojo in a room the size of a physical dojo. Whatever the room’s size, you could set it up with varying levels of quality, from home studio to a fully professional production studio. If you’d like some help with that, you can request an event with our Banty Plus or Banty Virtual Events services. These services often include initial set up arrangements qualified per the event holder’s request. You can continue to use the initial setup arrangement for as long as you choose after that.
Or arrange for several good sparring partners for different, separate days. Sure, you can do a lot of teaching on dummies, punching bags, speed bags and other types of targets. You could also teach some techniques through shadow boxing and the like. But ultimately, martial arts are about engaging other people, and your lessons would likely be incomplete without a few live demonstrations of actual engagement between two or more human beings.
Whether you use one of your top students, a fellow martial arts instructor, or simply a volunteer; can depend on the type of demonstration you’re giving, but usually, it pays to have someone who can keep up with you in the lesson. Also be sure to go over the lesson plan with them and let them know the kind of response they should display. The last thing your insurance needs is an accidental injury because you didn’t warn your assistant to be ready to fall on their right side.
Welcome to the future. Start by selecting any video conferencing software and you’re already way ahead of your competition. Nowadays, an instructor who uses the occasional video call to explain his pre-recorded course is considered advanced. When you present your course live on a video call, you’ll be much more than a little “advanced”. For the best results, use Banty’s virtual meeting solutions.
