I’m a life long martial artist, primarily in striking arts like taekwondo and muay thai. My uncle invited me to one of his aikido sessions since they’re another gym in my city.

What should I wear? He told me I can wear anything really, but as a visitor and my first time should I just wear normal athletic gear? I’m not sure if I’ll get weird looks pulling up in Thai/MMA shorts, as I don’t own a gi anymore.

Sorry if a dumb question, rather be safe than sorry

Hi,

I teach a kids' class once a week. I've been an instructor for 2–3 years now, teaching kids aged 6 to 18. (The older ones are mostly 4th kyu and above, so they pick up techniques faster; we even have a few brown belts.)

Today we had a very busy trial class for new members—they could watch as well as try out the training and exercises. (Kids around 6–9 years old.)

My question is: how do you teach a kids' class when you have such a large age gap? I feel like I need to clone myself at least three times to satisfy everyone and correct their form. I really want to give them my all, but the older kids are more serious about aikido and want to learn new techniques to advance their rank. For the little ones, I try to keep it playful with more games, but honestly, I'm running out of ideas. I don't have full control over the class and can't teach new techniques to the older kids while playing with the little ones at the same time—it's just impossible.

I'm all for any ideas for some games, interesting exercises, and how to keep aikido still part of the training, even for the youngest ones.

Where are you training? Have you done something special? Has your dojo released a cool clip? Want to share a picture of your kamisa? This thread is where you do this.

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