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Join the interactive Team Taekwondo Group on Facebook | The Revolutionary David Vernon Training System
This revolutionary system has been developed over a three year period and is backed by many years of experience in teaching taekwondo and most importantly, it works!
I'm happy to share this system here on the internet for any other club to emulate as it has proven to be and incredible teaching tool and everyone should be aware and have access to it.
Ideally, for this system to be of most benefit to you and your students, belt colours should be separated into their own training groups as much as possible, especially for juniors. Ideally, that means separate training sessions for white, yellow, blue, red & black belts, and then separated again into children and adults classes. Also I would assume that there is a clearly defined syllabus already be in place.
In a nutshell: Coloured stripes are awarded to students for attaining a certain taekwondo skill to a certain level. Stripes can be awarded at any given training session throughout the term. See the diagram below. I would recommend reading the benefits of implementing this system to your club (scroll down).
Benefits of implementing the David Vernon Training System
Motivation - This is a big issue for any business operating in the fitness industry be it a gym, sporting club, or martial arts centre. Retention rates (members who don't drop out) are relatively low in our industry, meaning many drop outs, but not with my system. I'm happy to say that this unique training system delivers unusually high retention rates.
From the members point of view there is an extra motivating factor to come to training regularly - "maybe I'll get a stripe today". Three months is a long time to wait for a grading (promotion to the next belt level) and this system rewards members along the way.
Higher skill level - For a student to attain a particular stripe (which they really want) they need to perform the skill to a certain level, which is clearly spelled out by the instructor. You can bet that students will work hard to get to the level needed to attain their stripe.
Increased concentration - Students will concentrate harder and for longer periods to make the changes necessary to achieve a particular skill with the reward of a stripe in mind.
Self determination - Rather than relying totally on the instructor's opinion of how a student is progressing at training, they can see first hand by the stripes they have achieved so far. This empowers the student to take a much more active roll in their own training and gives them a great sense of self determination. This also ads to their motivation and concentration.
Enthusiasm - Before starting Team Taekwondo and establishing this system, I taught many students at many clubs from Victoria all the way up the east coast of Australia as far north as Cairns. My experience has been that generally when the class needs to practice the more technical side of Taekwondo, such as patterns or poomse, there is a collective sigh, as if to say "boring!" especially from the younger members. Now, with this system in place, when we announce that we are going to practice something like poomse, there is a collective cheer! What a difference! A poomse stripe can be one of the more difficult stripes to attain and students want the chance to practice it.
Grading confidence - Grading can be an extremely nerve racking event for those not operating with this system because the student may have the fear of failure. I've trained at clubs where although the instructors are working with the best of intentions, a student has failed a grading that they just weren't ready for. It can be difficult for instructors, and it's an unreasonable pressure for them to have to make mental notes of everyone's standard for each skill required. Without an effective tracking system the student may be put up for grading and fail through no fault of their own, with usually dire outcomes (I've witnessed students running out of grading's, crying, never to be seen at training again).
With my system that scenario will never happen. Although our students will have some nerves at grading, it's only natural, they also have the confidence of knowing that they have collected all the stripes needed for their grading. They have already proven to the instructors and more importantly to themselves, that they are ready to grade.
This changes the atmosphere of a grading dramatically from one of fear of failure, to one of a very positive event. In fact, when we talk about grading's at training, rather than refer to them as a test, we promote it as "a chance to show off what you have learnt".
From a business point of view, the grading (backed by my system) is a great marketing opportunity in promoting your Taekwondo business. Parents and friends get to witness the students performing their skills to a high level with great confidence and enthusiasm and everyone goes away buzzing! You can bet they'll tell their friends all about it!
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