Best Practices For Creating Live Streams/Videos For Your Online Curriculum

Increasingly Martial Arts Schools are closing down their physical locations for the good of their community. But those communities need those Martial Art Schools to be there when the world returns to normal. The Martial Arts industry are responding with a Blackbelt attitude and creating their own online curriculum to make sure that their students get the teaching they need and also give parents a reason to keep their children enrolled during the stoppage. 

As part of a Live Seminar we held with Master Tony Kook, a successful school owner with 4 schools, we discussed things to keep in mind when working on developing your Live streaming/video curriculum to keep students engaged. The video is at the top of the story. If you need a quick summary we got you covered with bullet points from the conversation below:

  1. You don’t need the most state of the art  camera to get started. Your camera phone will work just fine. Just make sure that you have top of the line WIFI to go with it.
  2. You’ll want to combine prerecorded video and Live Streams on your channel if you go full virtual. Sticking only with pre-recorded won’t have the level of engagement you need. 
  3. YouTube is the best platform for posting your videos/running Livestreams because it is easily accessible and everyone has the APP. Facebook Live is also an excellent tool if you get your students to join their own private Facebook group. This means that they get notified when you’re going live.
  4. Now what do you do in your class? It is very important to say hello to each of the students and verbalize the benefits of training like learning focus, respect, exercising throughout your lessons. You need to make sure that you or your instructor is continuing to build that relationship with the students. Master Kook gave a good example of beginning each lesson with bowing so that it reiterates the respect you taught them at your school. You can use this as an entrance point to discussing how maintaining your health is being respectful to your body. The main point is that you need to continually drive home the values they are learning and how those values can help them in their lives.
  5. Make sure it’s a full class. Take them through warm ups, drills they can do at home, then warm down and then do a mat chat.
  6. Bring all of your (or your instructor’s) energy and animation to get them excited!  Teach one too many. A great example of this type of animated teaching can be found at Zumba Strong
  7. Give your students homework like 10 push ups or ten stretches everyday. Make sure they report that they have done it. Tell them you’ll log it and they’ll get their stripes when they come back to class. It’s important to give them something to strive towards. 
  8. For private lessons Zoom might allow you to be more closely connected to your students but will be time consuming and is not one to many. Start with Youtube Live to get a hang of the format.

We are going to continue to provide resources for school owners dealing with the impact of the Coronavirus on their small business. For access to the full live stream and bullet-points for all of Master Kook’s insights on minimizing losses during the Coronavirus pandemic click here.

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For medical advice for United States customers go to the CDC website and for Canadian customers please go here for the latest updates.