Private class

I've got the "contract" to teach the three musketeers self-defense and sparring for as long as I can starting this July. Hmmm...my Saturdays and Sundays will be cramped with martial arts and I have no weekends to enjoy and relax, and of course nobody is to be blamed for I am the one who chose this path *grin* - rasa macam Chaucer's knight plak. I think I should slow down a bit since this academic year will be my final year and my very last chance to push my pointer to the first class. But then again, first class isn't everything. You can expect a person to graduate with a first class degree from a univ which uses English and Arabic as the medium, but can't speak/write/read either proper Arabic or fluent English. So what's the use of 3.6++ if you lack the skills and abilities to impress your future employers rite?! Ok, coming back to the topic...what's the advantages and disadvantages of taking private martial arts lessons. This is based on my own experience, might be right/wrong to a certain extent.

Advantages:
- teacher gets more money lah hehehe, it's like private tuition, the lesser the students, the higher the fees - but my fee depends on my student's "capacity" i.e. according to what Mom thinks would be OK for the parents to pay ^__^, because s/times Mom knows the parents better.

- more attention from the teacher, mistakes can be identified and corrected immediately

- have the whole classroom/gym to themselves, don't have to worry about kicking some other people's butt or step on their foot while moving backwards.

- some important and exclusive tips/advice might be handed down to you

Disadvantages (apart from the money to be paid ^__^)
- hard to conduct sparring and target training - in the end have to spar with the teacher and the teacher would try not to injure the students. If you have another student in the class, it would be easier, as student against student - they lack the control, the skills and patience. These are the things to be developed by the teacher, but if the teacher kept on controlling him/herself from really sparring with the student, he/she (student) won't learn. You have to experience pain to understand the abstract word of "hurt" and "pain" - this applies to martial arts to a certain extent (am not trying to discourage people to learn martial arts ^__^ )

- less competitive. You are competing against yourself, if you think you are good than that's the end of it. If there are other students in the class, you have to work hard to be as good as them or better.

- no feedback from friends. Some teachers/instructors that I know do not have the guts to criticize the students because they are worried the kids would report it to the parents, and the class would be over, no student - no class - no money. If there are friends around in the class, they would simply "bang" (feedback lah ni) each other if they did not perform well especially the small kids. Some teachers takut of their own students because normally those who take private lessons are the rich snobbish kids of datuks, tan sris, and orang kaya2, but NOT all lah.

Other than these, I think it would be ok. Try to take up private lessons with at least another student so that you'd be able to really learn martial arts. I've never joined any private martial arts class, but have been teaching it for some time.