The benefits of having a community taekwondo program is most evident in the financial overhead it takes to run it.  Nearly everything that is needed is provided and rates for the school and instructor are kept relatively low.  However, as many of you have experienced and may already know, there are quite a few disadvantages as well.

For one, our training sessions can be interrupted, cancelled, postponed or even moved to a lesser than accomodating space.  The biggest disadvantage, though, is in the amount of time we are able to use the space we rent.  Many schools are unable to plan an adequate amount of training time for classroom sessions.  In my opinion even training three times a week is not quite enough to become as proficient in something as what would be required of a martial artist.  In the arts, repetitive training and practice is the key in mastering any one particular technique.  Knowing that we do not have this time together as I would prefer, I emplore you to train as much as you can when not in class.  Parents, please encourage your children to go over and practice what is taught in class while they are at home on weekends.  Help them find, or set aside, some time to train as much as possible.

Our school sets our test eligibility at around 2 months per belt level, but with only two sessions a week there is very little time left for them during classes to become truly proficient enough to qualify as skilled in those requirements.  If not only but 30 minutes at a time, I think it's important to try include one session of training 5 days out of every week.  This would include their knowledge on terminology and history as well as form and execution.  I ask for your help in this because there is so much time spent during class on reviewing what was already taught, there's not much time left over to cover something new.  Students review what you're taught throughout that week,  practice each technique at home several times over so that you can remember them.  I must re-iterate that mastery comes with much practice and dedication.  Knowing that repititive training can get boring I plead with you for your patience.  Nothing worth being proud of comes without labor or cost.

Remember everyone, Practice, Practice, Practice ...