… and I am talking to you, teachers!

At the start of each new capoeira season (that’s September for us, after the summer break), my co-trainer and I have a meeting where we discuss our plans for the upcoming season.

Topics are: when are we starting, do we need policy changes, are we going to do some marketing, how will we organize the classes…

We do this every year to make sure we are on the same page. Last month however, when my colleague asked me what we should improve on I simple answered “Nothing, everything is going fine”. While that wasn’t completely untrue, my buddy answered me:

“You can always improve something. If you don’t try to change you’ll get stuck in your ways”.

And he was exactly right. I had been on autopilot for the last half of the previous season, teaching my classes and not worrying about too much else. But having to improve on at least one point gave me a task and got me thinking more about which goals I wanted to reach with our students. And it made me instantly more involved.

What did I conclude? That we should focus more on the basic esquivas because some of our students still lack the basic techniques. And with that, I found more purpose to teaching and we could set a goal for the first months.

If you are a teacher, don’t get stuck in a rut but look for at least one thing to improve each season. Your students will benefit from it, and so will you.

— Vinho