Managing a class of different experience levels

[Ljgale]

I saw an interesting conversation on an aikido forum which i thought would be worth starting here.

Within a class, how do you effectively manage / group people of different physical abilities, strength and experience?

[Paul J]

I looked after a colleagues kids class recently with ages 5 to 10. Chaos, complete carnage! The littlest ones ran riot but I guess we're talking about older students here.

[Ljgale]

Lol, sounds like a fun experience!

[Paul J]

I think it's important for senior students to train with juniors within a club. This allows them to consolidate their basic techniques and learn to mentor the juniors. This is the traditional way. I like the term spiral learning whereby lessons are taught cyclically but as the student develops, their level of skill is higher each time and they should still be able to take something from that particular lesson and apply that skill .
In a class of mixed experience levels it is important to give senior students the attention they need. We are fortunate to have enough instructors to be able to split the class and allow time at the end for each group to get the instruction they need. We also offer a senior class.
I would also suggest giving senior students specific tasks to work on or goals to achieve so they can work on that individually or as a small group unsupervised this is also critical for personal development.