PCP - not the drug

I spent the day yesterday in Taekwondo mode where I had one hour of normal class followed by two hours of leadership class. Saturdays are what are called "B" days at the dojang where we concentrate mostly on sparring. On "A" days, we concentrate mostly on forms and weapons. We ended up doing a multi-contestant sparring drill where we had 3 vs. 3. It was quite chaotic as you aren't limited to sparring against just one of the other opponents. Sparring days definitely take a lot more out of me and I try to go to at least one of these days each week to get a good workout.

The leadership class focused on how to teach color belts various techniques. It was more centered on the actual teaching aspects than the mechanics of the actual technique. They broke us up into teams of 4-5 with a lead instructor heading each group (16 teams!!!). We then had to use the various teaching methodologies that they actually want us to use to teach the rest of our group how to do a taekwondo basic technique. For example, I was given the chore of teaching a Fast Kick to a group of students that were pretending to be yellow belts (in our dojang, that is geup 9 just above white belt).

One of the "methodologies" we are supposed to use is the acronym PCP which stands for Praise, Correct, Praise. In simplest terms, you have the students show you the technique. You then find something good about the technique and praise them on it. You also find something they need to improve on the technique and correct them. You finally have them try it again and praise them on how they have improved on that particular aspect you asked them to work on. This can't be empty praise if they haven't actually improved. When that occurs, you encourage them to work on it instead and praise them for their effort. In most cases though, you will see at least some improvement if the student is really trying to do better.

At the end of the class, the lead instructor of each group was supposed to tell Master Lee which of his students was the best instructor in his group. There is a part of me that hopes it was me as I'm the only one in my group that is going to be testing for instructor in a month and I have the most experience in class assisting. I'll never know though because they didn't share that information with the rest of us. I'm the type of personality where not knowing something just kills me.

And no, I haven't heard any information on my MRI yet either. Arrggh.