The teaching lesson is the first lesson your students will encounter and, to some extent, it will be a type of lesson that they will continue to encounter throughout their storied fencing career. It focuses on conveying skills that are best taught through presentation by an instructor, as opposed to discovery or sustained practice by the student. As such, it places great importance on the instructor’s ability to present technically and historically correct skills to the student.
I have already covered the key considerations in teaching a single skill. In this article, I’ll focus on how to put the skills, warm-up, and wrap-up together to form an engaging lesson.
The teaching lesson begins with a brief what, why, and how statement: what you are going to teach, why it is important, and how it relates to what students already know. This is no more than 2-5 sentences, and it should be short. It helps students focus and put the lesson in the context of their overall program.
Physical activity begins with a warm-up to increase physical and psychological readiness to learn. To the greatest extent possible, warm-up activities should be fencing-specific with a focus on movement patterns to be used in a history lesson. You may choose to use modern exercises or activities that are more geared toward historical fencing technique, but any activity selected must be specifically related to the class and evaluated for safety. In general, a warm-up should not last more than 10-15 minutes.
The main body of the teaching lesson is devoted to teaching skills and takes up the most time at 20-30 minutes. There are a number of guidelines in lesson planning to ensure that it is effective on your students’ communication skills.
First, always work from known techniques to new, related, and unfamiliar techniques, even if only as part of the lesson. Work from simple skills to more complex ones. Work from slow to fast. These are rules that apply to teaching physical skills in any type of activity and have been used by fencing masters for at least 700 years.
Second, make the lessons progressive. The skills that are taught must complement each other to increase the combat ability of the student. How you do this will depend on the lore, school, or mastery you are studying, and requires that you understand and follow the doctrine revealed in the appropriate historical texts. For example, many sources describe fencing skills in the same order that the master would logically have taught the skills. Others provide a hierarchy of what is most important. If we think of fencing in the context of possibly having to fight for your life on the way home after taking today’s lesson, the most important thing is what you learn first.
Third, consider linking techniques that are logically related in one lesson. If you teach an offense, it makes sense to teach the defense against that offense in the same lesson. Or if he teaches an initial attack, it makes sense to teach how to renew that attack on the chase or at closer range.
Following the main body of teaching new skills, consider including 10-15 minutes of combat or solo practice time, depending on the student’s knowledge level. People come to fencing to strike with swords, and bouts provide engagement with the sword and an opportunity to try to apply what has been learned in class. Ten minutes may not seem like a long time, but if you fight typical one-hit matches using the period rules, this actually allows for a lot of combat.
Finally, conclude the lesson. This should include a simple, easy-to-perform slow-speed exercise or other type of cool-down activity, followed by a restatement of key learning points, student questions, and a statement of what will be taught in the next lesson for motivation. for murga.
This format makes for a well-organized lesson with constant student activity. It focuses on the instructor being responsible and on the transmission of knowledge from the instructor to the student. The teaching lesson is particularly suitable for beginning classes and for introducing new lines of study in an intermediate class.