Episode 525 - Martial Arts Programs for Homeschool Students
Martial Arts Programs for Homeschool Students
In this episode, Jeremy talks with Sensei Jenni Sui and Sensei Jason Hoard about Martial Arts Programs for Homeschool Students
Martial Arts Programs for Homeschool Students - Episode 525
As the COVID-19 Pandemic is seen to stay for a while, homeschooling is being considered by most parents to avoid getting their children infected. So in this episode, we invite returnee Sensei Jenni Sui and new on the show, Sensei Jason Hoard. They are both experienced when it comes to homeschooling and teaching martial arts to homeschooled students. Listen as they dive in on their experiences with homeschool and how feasible it is to teach martial arts to homeschooled kids.
Show Notes
Martial Arts Programs for Homeschool Students.
Check out Sensei Jenni Sui's Episode here and check a related episode here
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download it here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. Well, here we are. We are back. We're talking about homeschooling in the martial arts. And to say in a different way, martial arts for home school students. An opportunity that I see coming back on episode 513. We talked about this and by we, I mean me, I talked about this, brought up this subject and said, Hey, this is something that I think some of you need to look at. But I would love some feedback and got a bunch of emails from a bunch of different people. It was great. I learned a lot, and I'm back with two of those people who wrote in, so let me introduce them, and then I'll let them talk, and we're going to go from there and I think you're going to learn a lot with this one. I'm going to introduce Sensei Jenni first. Only because she's a returning guest. Sensei Jenni was on the show episode, 464, we dug into her story there. And it was it was great story and I'm glad to have you back.
Jenni Sui:
Thank you. It's a good day. It's good to get a chance to talk with you again.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. This will be fun. And then, new to the show. Sensei Jason is on. So, sir. Thank you. I appreciate you joining us in your willingness to talk on the subject.
Jason Hoard:
Yes, thanks for having me. Thanks for the topic as well.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Of course, let's start with you. So, what was it if you could, you know, in 60 seconds or less. What was it about this idea of martial arts and homeschool students that you wrote to me about and said hey, here's what I think.
Jason Hoard:
Right. 60 seconds or less moved to a different state kids couldn't go to school because they were too young because of the age cut off so I had to homeschool my own kids. I was teaching martial arts shortly after that and said hey, I've got this time in the middle of the day, why don't I started homeschool class for other homeschool students, pretty much it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. That's I think there wasn't 20 seconds. Jenni.
Jenni Sui: 2:10
Yes. So I was that homeschooled student. I was homeschooled all growing up, I started doing martial arts lessons about 12 years old. Obviously, those were late afternoon classes, which it was interesting even back then. I thought to myself, well there's this gap between when I do school. And when we have Karate classes right it was Karate. Fast forward 30 years here we are today. Roughly 75% of our students currently are homeschool students. Right now, and that's honestly due to word of mouth, you know, one family says this is great to another family to another family to another family and here we are. So we've been able to cater our school, our schools schedule to them a lot more than others. Now, obviously we have to make sure we balance everything. But, yeah, and we homeschool our own kids, so I feel like it's something that I'm very comfortable with. And I see the benefits, I see the positive and negatives. But yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I've got a feeling that most of the programs out there that people were doing for home school students or, let's just say more generically during unconventional hours right there. There are times during the day that people are used to martial arts classes and they tend to be after school, after work. But those daytime classes there are lots of reasons that somebody might have some of those. Certainly there are adult programs I've seen those growing as people start working more and more untraditional work hours. But you brought up something that I think is pretty important for us to start with as a subject. And that's word of mouth, it's my understanding that in each geographic area that the homeschool community tends to be pretty tight knit. Is that something that you've both found in. Jason you start
.Jason Hoard:
Yeah. So there's my homeschooling journey started to Indiana also kind of started with the congregation the church that I was attending, where everything was heavily geared towards curriculum. I think the major curriculum players Abeka out of frustration I kind of call the Department of Education and said hey, what’s the regulation. You can do this yourself so I kind of broke away from the community that existed. But at the same time they were a wealth of information so there's like, there's this group and this is when we meet and we do things together. Here's another group. Everybody got along it was just differences and what curriculum you used or what activities or frankly schedules that they had together, just, I think one family of seven kids home schooled pastor's wife so they were kind of their own microcosm if you will, because they have so many kids right in their house and they would teach other people, people would bring their gifts to them so they had, I think 20, some kids that they would teach, just in that one family. So just as an example, mentioned real quick back in Michigan. I went to college with a friend who was part of, I can't remember the name of the group, but they in Grand Rapids Michigan had a very large home school building. So all the different people will go and do their home school at their respective houses and then they would join together and they would have things like band sports teams. I wish I could remember the name of it but it's pretty impressive. And I think they called it actually the home school building.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Jenni looks like you were nodding along to just throughout everything Jason said so. Does that kind of mirror your experiences?
Jenni Sui:
Yeah. There are quite a few co Ops, there are quite a few home school co-ops like Jason said for things like science club science clubs. And I've actually been invited several times to come teach, say, a 12 week course within one of those co-ops. You know, and they said we don't want your full curriculum, but can you just come and do 12 weeks, you know. And so there's a lot of opportunities and once for us. Once we have a family of students in one of those co-ops intends to spread, you know, they the moms sit and talk and the kids talk and if they're excited about what we're doing, then that excitement spilled out to somebody else. And then pretty soon we get, you know, at times we've had six or seven different families, email or call and say hey we heard about you from so and so. What are your hours, what do you do, what do you teach Tell us more, which is fantastic. And it's really just spread from there, and you know, thinking about it locally, there are five different co-ops that our students are a part of and that's where you know we've actually I'm terrible at marketing because I simply haven't had the experience I haven't needed to. Yeah, we actually have waiting lists for our classes because we just don't have the space.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That’s a great problem. When we consider this this whole idea this idea of homeschooling, especially if we're talking about teaching these classes during the day, right, because if we were just talking about a general class it was at these traditional times. Late afternoon, evening. It really doesn't matter when the kids are going to school or what their academic program is, but I think that we're talking specifically about classes that would occur during the day and I don't think anybody is going to argue that if you're a full time instructor. This is a great opportunity because it's a time that you're not typically going to be able to teach. If you work a full time job, maybe that's not available to you and your interest might be more theoretical than practical and that's okay. But I want to talk about that. That word of mouth that kind of it almost sounds viral this jumping on, I mean I kind of heard it from both of you that these communities of people are really looking for what we offer as martial artists and I'm curious why, Jason.
Jason Hoard:
I never thought to ask why I was just happy that there were lots of students willing to learn, and their parents were, like, Sensei Jenni said doing most of the marketing for me. I think convenience was a factor. I think willingness to listen to how they structured and learn a few things from those communities was also a factor. Because I tried to do my own work as much as I can but it's a no more of a grassroots talking directly to the people. A willingness to be flexible certainly not to say that non homeschool students don't have this but just, just from the students themselves a hunger for knowledge. It wasn't just digging and punching it will stop for questions about history about my experience about family. Sometimes I get some odd questions about homework hey Sensei Jason you're good at math. Well I was an engineer before so I know this math but so there were some tutoring involved as well. So, if it makes sense I guess I felt more like a community member than I did kind of and outside since they are an outside source. It was really kind of an adopting of each other's like a okay we're going to have you meet these students, and let's develop a true relationship, not just a martial art sensei student relationship, but learning about each other about the community supporting each other, supporting others and in community. Just thinking of examples, hey, these kids don't want to take class but can they come hang out, because their brothers and sisters are doing it. Well Yeah of course she can.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It sounds like it's less about them coming to you and more than inviting you in. Is that fair?
Jason Hoard:
Yeah, yeah. Okay, literally. Just I'll tell you the experience when I started going to a certain congregation and just looking, of course you can't look at a 10 kids and say whose homeschooled who goes to traditional who goes to private that type of thing. But some of them again caught me by surprise it caught me by surprise that a pastor's wife that had seven children decided to homeschool all of them. And we're talking about kids from then age two on up to 17 years old, and I'm like, Wow, you are truly a saint. How do you keep track of all that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Anybody who's ever taught a mixed aged, a mixed rank martial arts class knows the challenge of doing that for you know say an hour and then to do that for a school day, five days a week. Throughout the year that's, that's quite, quite a long time. Jenni, do you have any insight as to what it is that's maybe unique in the homeschool communities that they're, they're so intrigued and willing to bring in martial arts.
Jenni Sui:
I think One element is when you're in a traditional school setting. There are a lot of teams and there are a lot of clubs and a lot of opportunities for kids to be a part of. But those opportunities are typically offered as a single experience I'm going to play basketball in sixth grade I'm going to play softball in fourth grade, I'm going to try this I'm going to try that and there's nothing wrong with that at all. Martial Arts is different in that, especially with our homeschool students when they start. They come in and go. Okay, here's the belt on the wall from white to black. So basically, we're in this for the long haul. I mean, I feel like that's in perspective, especially as Sensei Jason just said, you know, you see these families with four or five, six, seven kids, they're in it for the long haul their perspective and I think the perspective that they pass on to their kids is when we do something we do it, whether it's hard, or we stick with it, we're going to keep you and we're going to work through these things with you, and we're going to find a way to meet you where you're at. I think a lot of times, not that public school or private school will say traditional schooling is wrong. It's just, it's a system. And it works for a lot of kids, but a lot of kids get lost through the cracks, you know. And so I think homeschooling you don't have that opportunity to lose a kid through the cracks very much. So when they come to martial arts, we see them kind of the wheels start turning, they're asking those questions as Sensei Jason said they're not just like okay what do I got to do for my next build typically generalization, but they're thinking. All right, what is this all about? And once they're in, they really invest; I just, I see a little bit more of a whole family's invested. And I think that makes that makes it unique, that makes the, they're drawn towards something like martial arts unique when they come in and they say you're gonna stick with my kid for eight years, you want like you know you're not here for a soccer season. You know, you're here and you're going to take them all the way through. And so, that is appealing to them.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One of the things that I've noticed in elementary and maybe even up a little, little higher seventh, eighth grade is kind of where it seems to top out in my area is that they're starting to assign teachers for multiple years. So, a kid might have same teacher for third and fourth grade. And then another fifth and sixth grade so you know as he goes through those four years they have two teachers instead of four. And it sounds like some of what I'm hearing from you might be similar in that they're able to build stronger relationships, and we're seeing the value of that and here, here we are as martial arts instructors I mean if we if we raised someone from white to black belt or whatever the equivalents might be in a particular style. That's a multi-year commitment that's generally on the super-fast track we're talking three to four years. Most schools I think we're talking for five six years, sometimes even longer that's a long commitment.
Jenni Sui:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We talked about some of the good let's talk about some of the more challenging aspects. There are plenty of stigmas about homeschool students, and I hope that people listening that might have some of those thoughts will realize, hey, if, If some of these clichés about home school students being antisocial and not knowing how to converse, if, if you're not experiencing those, that doesn't mean it's not a homeschool student means it's a well-adjusted, kid. Right, it's there always be outliers or always be things that stick out so beyond that. Let's talk about what some of the challenges are in teaching this population, Sensei Jason.Jason Hoard:I think I think the most challenging thing was for me having my own kids in the class. Because there's at all. You know your kid, your --- instructor. And of course we practice at home so I was always concerned about everybody else feeling like a step behind because I could say something that the kids say do this, go do this. And I never got the impression or the look or even the question, you know, we can be. Why, why is he always picking that person to do that or demonstrate that or always just picking his own kid to do that. And I say that was a challenge maybe in my mind. I never had any one say anything to me. With that, if there was something to be said I would hear it right away usually from the parents. I grew up in inner city, and where I taught some of those places sometimes the only chance the kids would have to have a meal is when they're in school. So when I taught after school I would make it a point to bring snacks with me so I can send them off with something maybe they hadn't eaten all day so I just for whatever reason carry that habit with me into the homeschool classes that I was teaching so at the end of class like hey, come get a snack and I made sure it's a healthy snack you know raisins grapes stuff like that. One, one of the parents just said out loud and I still don't know not taking that didn't really address it. Just say it out loud; oh I would never use food as a reward. And I was kind of taken aback I'm like oh okay. And I kind of joked about it. And I said to students I'm like okay well is Mrs. Jones. All right. And I look specifically at her son as this is where you say yes, always back up your mother, you know, but I thought about it but then I'm like Okay, is there something to be said or was it just, I don't know. So, I guess I'm really struggling for any real challenges. I didn't really have as many problems. Discipline wise. I guess the only real problem if you want to say it was sibling rivalry. And sometimes,
Jeremy Lesniak:
Is that stronger in home school population?
Jason Hoard:
I don't know that it was stronger. It would be the example I'm thinking of is when the younger student was getting a concept and they were telling the older student to do it this way and the older student the big brother didn't like it. So I thought okay well maybe the big brothers ones used to telling you know taking care of the younger one or whatever but now the little one has got the concept, telling Big Brother how to do it, and now he's got this look on his face. Again, not a super big deal is just something that happened that stood out to me and then you know banana class and everybody was cool.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I could see that that could make sense I would imagine you know I was not homeschooled, but I had a number of friends who were. And from my understanding, it's generally a more collaborative environment where whoever's will say administering generally the parent, how you get there maybe doesn't matter so much it's less about the structure of the system. I think one of you referred to it as the system of public private education focuses on learning. And so if that education comes from an older sibling, being able to explain it better. That's okay. Whereas in our typical setup of a martial arts school, we have that top down, because of the importance of new ones right martial arts isn't. You know, an A, B, on, off, black, white, you know, super objective thing there's a lot of subjectivity that comes through. So I could see that being challenging at times. Sensei Jenni how about challenges you've experienced teaching these, these kids.
Jenni Sui:
Um, it's funny because I was actually trying to think of some of the challenges that we've faced over the last, see last few years. One of them is anecdotal, but it has been real is. We tend to assume that kids know how to act and conduct themselves in a group setting. Some of them do great they've done co-ops there, their parents have brought them out to lots of things and some haven't had that experience for some of them our classes, the very first time that they're required to do things that in school you kind of just learn in order to get along. For example, we have everyone line up. That's extremely hard for some of these kids, they don't wait in line, quietly for anything ever at home because they don't have to. And that's not long, but when we expect that of them and we explain what it is that we're expecting they kind of give you this blank stare like you want now, and why. One of the other one of the other challenges that comes from something really positive in the homeschooling situation is that they have one on one interaction, all the time. They don't have to raise their hand and wait to have a question answered unless they have seven siblings, you know, but typically speaking they can go straight to the source, and they get their answer right away. And we see that play out in class, and that can be an extremely positive thing. But it can also be a times challenging, because they'll come straight up to us and just be like, hey, Sensei I need, and they'll just completely interrupt sometimes in the middle of warm ups, you know we've had that experience and then we have to stop and go hey you know what your question is not wrong, but this is how we work in a group setting so everybody gets to be shown the same respect. And given the same experience. And that's something that has to be learned in our class because it's not learned in school. Is that wrong not necessarily it's just, it is a challenge, and it's something that once you recognize and can, you know, once you recognize it you can address it before it becomes a problem. But it was something that kind of blindsided us at first.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Is there anything that you do now to head that off there or do you to set that expectation with parents.
Jenni Sui:
Yeah, we've written an introductory letter to new or prospective students and just said hey, this is what it looks like. Your kids are more than welcome but we'd like them to hear what kind of just a basic outline of the decorum that we expect in class, and we'd like them to hear that, you can read it to them they can read it to themselves depending on their age. And if you feel like there's anything that's not real clear, we'd be happy to meet with them and go through it. We've also started. I think in the last year or so. Every single new student, we have a private one on one lesson first their very first lesson is. And that gives us an idea of kind of their personality, how they interact with us we can explain and answer any of their questions, if they're super quiet and they don't ask any questions we just talk a lot, and try and get as much information to them as we can. And then when they come into class, you know at that lesson we kind of go Okay, now you're most welcome to sit off to the side and watch the class that you're going to be a part of starting next time, right. So, trying to give them that intro, as opposed to just throwing them in and then having the expectation. And you know, we have a decent amount of students who go to private or public school, they walk in and they know the drill. Oh class line up yeah okay we line up, we do this you know we wait in line from the bottom we do all that. So, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Sensei Jason, any expectations that you set for new students?
Jason Hoard:
Well I was going to jump in with challenges because you jog my memory.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh yeah, please.
Jason Hoard:
In this, this isn't unique to homeschool but one of the challenges I do remember was deconstructing the martial arts myths. Somehow that got carried into, into things. I frequently teach with my shoes on and explain why we do that and why we practice with shoes off and all that and I remember a student questioning me. Oh, Karate you're supposed to have shoes off its not real karate unless it's, you have your shoes off. And I said, Young sir. Have you ever been in the fight, and goes yeah actually I have a couple times, I was like, how many times you have your shoes off. Oh, okay. And then we moved on. The other thing was in his goes into expectations, is when a new family would hear about it. And I had one family that was; it was actually a current student’s cousin. The parents were really excited so they dropped off the cousin with and dropped off the kid in the class. In the middle of me teaching a class we're on the line doing drills and she just pops in and puts them in the cousins, put them next to the cousin. I'm like, Hi Can I help you, it's like, oh, and that’s his cousin and walks out. I'm like, oh, okay well. So, yeah, I think I should have made the expectations a little bit more clear with that, particularly with the signup process and we need a waiver we need you to actually talk to the people that have your kids off the thing. So as far as expectations with that I was just I'm always just really clear with what we expect. Typically in the down to the class level this is what we're going to do today this is what I expected to do. So there's never really any issues they're with it they being received well either and they're goofy things that I don't really attribute anything just, you know, kids being kids or misunderstanding or maybe not, not enough clear thing so I learned something from Sensei Jenni already, introductory letter.
Jeremy Lesniak:Awesome. I was, I was hopeful. I was hopeful you would be teaching each other as well as the rest of us.Jenni Sui:And we learned that through trial and error.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah, let's build on that for a moment then a few. If you listen to martial arts radio extensively you know I like to ask these retrospective questions I like to learn from mistakes. And I like to learn from other people's mistakes more so, you know, making a mistake is fine avoiding it's even better, if you were to have the figurative Time Machine I'm so fond of calling down in the midst of my interviews and be able to go back to, you know, early on in your homeschool programs. What would be the bits of advice you'd be given to yourself you know do this. Don't do that. We've covered, I'm sure, quite a bit of it but what other things, and we'll bounce back to Jason to start.Jason Hoard:I would have to say be more inquisitive. So my home school. Well one of them. I did one of the church and I did one at the local YMCA, and I had the privilege of being at a new launch of a brand new YMCA, and being basically in charge of all the programs so when it is a regular programming and adult program family martial arts something called executive or 35 and adult adults 35 and older. We had preschool martial arts and home school martial arts home school I want to say we had 11 people sign up for that middle of the day class. The evening class was interesting. Anyone can sign up for that. Later I found out that I believe. I can't remember as either 11 or 13 of those kids were actually homeschool kids that actually went to the evening class for whatever reason, convenience, you know, I just remember not asking the question and not really finding out. And I saw them on T night one time and it came up like hey you're a home school like you know we have this class oh we didn't know so maybe a little goes back to marketing, a little bit more self-promotion and saying, you know, mentioning in the other classes. So certainly that. Gosh, I just, not just expecting home school kids in ours. I shouldn't say it kids what students in that situation, too. So, I believe all the people that were in the midday class were on homeschool students. But in the case of at least one it was like a big brother situation where don't come to school early super smart but didn't want to go to college yet because he was 16 or 17, different thing but still in the class. So just I guess keeping my eyes open for me I like the term you use Mr. Lesniak non-traditional students because it could be homeschooling it can be unschooling it could be some other type of school where that person has Oh my own kids they went to what was called a hybrid charter school, three days ae week at home and then two days a week at the Learning Center. So there were opportunities for those students that are charter school to also go and join that class as well.Jeremy Lesniak:There's quite a mix of. And I guess the best way that I can lump a single description is untraditional or non-traditional child student academic programs because what we're what's the core here that we're talking about. It's about this different time of day. You know, if you're going to run. There's nothing there's no reason at all that a homeschool child can't come to a 4:30, 5:30pm class nobody's going to stop them and say, you don't you don't come here on the bus you can't be here right I don't see that happening. So what we're really talking about are the pros and cons of building a program that is at a different time of day. So, Jenni. Time Machine question to you what you know what you are going back telling yourself. A few years ago to do and not do.Jenni Sui:There is one thing that I feel like I would love to go back and say, and that is, actually. There are going to be this is not homeschool exclusive but I feel like we've experienced it and more so, there are parents who place expectations, and even limitations upon us. And in the beginning, when we were still feeling out how to run our school we allowed that too much. We allowed them to dictate too much, our curriculum.Jeremy Lesniak: Can you give us some examples.Jenni Sui:There was one family. That was not comfortable with their sons, being paired up for any reason with girls. Not partner drills not sparring, not even kata practice. They really didn't want those together at all which is funny because I am a girl and I was. But they didn't initiate that conversation until they were already well established in our school, and then at one point they came and said hey we'd like to not have our sons participate in things, if they're in this situation. And those limitations once we allow that. Because we didn't want to lose them as students, they were good students. We welcome, but we allowed that and that opened the door for others, and them to come in and say, Well actually we also don't want you to do this or we also would like you to do in addition to add this on that wasn't our plan and that wasn't our curriculum, but we started to feel very restrained by those situations, there were many. But, um, at one point I remember just thinking, I don't even feel like I'm in control of what I'm teaching. Yeah, I have to remember these kids can't do this and these kids want to do this and these kids won't do that. And I stopped, and Gabe and I had many conversations about what it looks like, do we just start from scratch and say we screwed up. You know, that's how we felt at times. And I think that because they write their own curriculum in a sense they choose their own curriculum, they choose their own schedule that comes more naturally to non-traditional schoolers because, I mean, like for myself as a homeschooling mom math didn't work this curriculum is just not working for my kid I'm going to drop it and grab something else and that's working great and we'll move on with that I have that freedom. And they felt they had that freedom in our dojo. Now, seven years later, you know, we really put our foot down at the beginning again going back to learning. Learning to set those expectations and say you sign here. And if something seems unreasonable to you. We absolutely are approachable and we can discuss that, you know, if you don't understand why we do things you know we had one family that was very concerned about the religious aspects of what we were teaching, and they came to us and they said we don't want our kids bowing, we don't want our kids doing certain things. And I sat down with the parents and I said, Can I just explain what we do and why, and then answer your questions. And that process of conversation you know their kids love it and they're coming and they're fully supportive now. Have we done that at the beginning with the other families? And said hey, let me talk you through what we're doing and why. And then you can choose to stay or go on that would have been a much healthier thing from both side.Jeremy Lesniak:That makes sense. Jason I saw you nodding along especially when Jenni brought up the, the, quote unquote religious aspect of right, bowing. So what's been your experience with that because from what I'm hearing you know based on the emails that I get the feedback that we receive at whistlekick. This has become a becoming, but this is in can be a really big deal, especially among communities that have a strong faith component.Jason Hoard: So, when I started studying traditional Taekwondo, it was from a Baptist minister, and he explained on the first day I came to class that he only bows to God. So we don't bow out here. I'm like, cool, but he was still, you know, one of my good friends was in there and whenever we inspire you make it a point to say a bow to each other and then, you know, give me the show. So, the first class I started at a Baptist congregation. The pastor for whatever reason just love Taekwondo and wanted me to teach him his kids and all that stuff so he didn't have any problem whether he understand the distinction. Having studied multiple cultures, he's like, pretty much, telling everybody Hey, calm down. This is how people say hello with a different culture. This is why we do it here. But I do remember having that conversation multiple times not just with homeschool but with a lot of people. I don't want my kid bowing to anybody. Well, you know I'm not teaching how to worship. This is a vital respect and now we say hello. We're too far apart to shake hands, you know, that type of thing. But yeah, I had that conversation, more than once. I tried to keep it short. That’s how we say hello. In fact, you'll learn later that every movement has a hidden meaning and I loved it for your kids to stick around to see the hidden meaning behind bowing and can be so 34:58 Oh, tell me more. No. Yeah. I have certainly had people come up and the first question of their mouth is do you teach bowing. Yes, sorry we can't be with you. Okay, well if you change your mind, you know, feel free to watch a class and see if you'll change your mind, you know, and it was always bowing sometimes it was the problem if I sleep tonight explain the history behind that and why we do it. You put in like that. No gang signs or whatever. That was a strange one I did get this though, are you doing gang signs are you just making gang signs. No, it's self defense.Jeremy Lesniak:One of the things that that I heard from both of you didn't express it this way but being confident in your curriculum. When you're bringing in this this demographic that may see you as a tutor, more so is in an instructor and an educator who's directing the curriculum to be firm to be really solid in. No, this is what we're doing. I have a plan. I've experienced with this. And generally, saying, Take it or leave it. Because I'm far better to determine how to teach this to your kid than you are. Is that a fair assessment?Jenni Sui: Yeah.Jason Hoard: Yes. And I'm trying to think maybe since Sensei Jenni has experienced this. I don't recall, for whatever reason that maybe I just didn't pay attention to it having any homeschool students whose parents were also either current or former martial artist, because I kind of went into anticipating that we will have a discussion. Sometimes that's a great conversation; sometimes it's a little bit typical. My style is better than yours. Yeah, you're bringing your gift to me. You know that old paradox. But I've never really experienced that that's the one thing I kind of went in expecting that I would uncover some person and I kind of hoped that it would be okay well yeah your master soul and so nobody know you're here to teach me.Jeremy Lesniak: You're looking at a selfish way. I can completely relate.Jason Hoard:Sensei Jenni, have you had any parents that were martial artists that wanted to give further input?Jenni Sui: 37:19I guess it's interesting because we have a lot of a lot of parents who have said oh when I was a kid I did you know six months or a year or something of whatever. Um, we have had a couple of parents that currently train at different schools. Um, and then for a while we had an adult class of comprise most mostly of parents of our students, but they started later. And that was actually a fun dynamic. For one, for a multitude of reasons at the moment that class is not currently going, but it will pick up again. That's been a lot of fun. On the flip side, because then two kids going hey I'm three four belts ahead of my parents, and learning how to show respect but also opening courage. Somebody in an authority position, it's an interesting paradox there. But yeah, we do have two dads who train at different schools. Currently, and their kids train with us, and it's been a very, in this case for us it's been a very chill experience. The, the one student on his, his dad is midway through the ranks at a different karate school, and they just they come home and they work out together and they compare curriculums in a very friendly way, I think it's super cool. He'll come back, he doesn't really volunteer much, the student, our student, but if I ask, say hey you know how does your dad do this or how would he defend against this whatever oh yeah we work on that and they kind of teach it a little different but, you know, we do this and so it's very, very neat thing to see within their family. And you know his dad had been training back at that school when he was a little kid and wanted to get back to it that's why he went back there. So that's pretty cool. Yes.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah. All right. I guess let's start to wrap up with, with this, what advice, what things that we haven't covered would you tell people somebody comes in and says, you know, I'm thinking about starting this homeschool program I you know I'm hearing that there are some kids in the area and getting a sense that maybe they and their families would be interested in putting something together. How would I get started or what do I not know that I don't know or, you know what, what would you tell them, Jason we'll start with you.Jason Hoard:Research, of course, like I said with my own children I was kind of frustrated and because they didn't want to let my kids. And even though in a previous state they had been in a preschool program. We need to go into kindergarten and they had to wait another year because of their age. So, out of frustration I called the Department of Education, who told me oh by the way, Indiana is a low regulation homeschool state, all of our curriculum is online you know it's really a wealth of information and it was really from there that this was kind of born, because I started to research and then talking to people in the congregation, learning about all the different things. So, research and just, you know, internet data and all that, you know, talking to people, maybe talk to your current student body, if you have one and say, any of you happen to be home schoolers, you know, how we get this started. 40:39 Solid curriculum you know it's easy for me because I just decided I was teaching traditional Taekwondo no matter what.Jeremy Lesniak:There's something we can really cover are your classes different. You run them differently?Jason Hoard: My classes became different, because even though I'm a traditional guy, all the way, you probably wouldn't recognize it if you came in in first class of my class, you know.Jeremy Lesniak:How interesting.Jason Hoard:A lot of the questions that people have the first one they walk in, Oh why he have a shoes on, you know, which I cover. Why is he so goofy, you know, on best when they give all that thing but it doesn't mean we're not working hard. Sorry. Siri decided to jump in.Jeremy Lesniak: My 41:23 speakers do that too.Jason Hoard:Yeah, but just I just had it in my head and then when people would ask the deep questions where exactly does this come from I would show them our syllabus the syllabus I had that I was working through, you will say there's an encyclopedia of Taekwondo. Check it out its online 15 volumes of everything you wanted to know and didn't want to know about this stuff. Some people will deep dive into that. So, but it was always for me. And this is something I inadvertently learned when I decided to become a martial arts teacher that meet the student where they are and have them speak their language so that you can explain it better to them. And I think that's how I change versus when I was taking classes for my dad, you know, he learned Japan. He brought that with them, perfect fit for the inner city school situation. Basically in so many words, sit down, shut up. Do what I say. Sensei knows all, you know which doesn't quite work when you've got a, you know, seven year old homeschool student doing college level math. That may be smarter than me, probably is and wants to know about the Applied Physics of a an outside knife and strikes Yeah, which we will dive into.Jeremy Lesniak: Awesome.Jason Hoard: Yeah, and I guess that's the other thing just be prepared for those types of things or questions. And with me, it was just go with it said don't worry about and or just do it. I'm like, Okay, well, I don't know, I don't know, let's find out together. Let's, let's do this. Let's get the high speed out and let's do the technique and see, you know, how the all this applies, you know. Yeah, gosh, there's so much I think a good solid foundation of research. And with that, what I specifically wanted to say is known about the regulations in your particular state. I had the privilege of having people that were in the congregation that said here, here it's open I didn't have to pay rent. I had insurance covered for me, so I was kind of fortunate. It was a little bit different from the YMCA even though they're a Christian organization budget, planning, all this type of stuff and I have to stick strictly to the budget so be prepared for those types of things as well. I'll let Sensei Jenni go in.Jeremy Lesniak: 43:50Yeah. So, same question to you. You know what, what stuff do you want to make sure people think about before they get started and in doing something like this.Jenni Sui: I think. Obviously scheduling is huge. You talked about the opportunity of having classes, mid-day, having classes late morning. Kind of the sky's the limit when it comes to thinking of starting or integrating homeschools classes. I think something that Sensei Jason said is really important. Knowing your students, and knowing their background at least a little bit, and saying, at least in our, in our situation. We don't want homeschool and traditional school kids to be separated on purpose. They're all students, they're all learning the same curriculum, they're all at the same school we're a family. Right. And if you can only make it to the class at noon, and so you only ever see other homeschool kids, that's fine, that's great, or if your schedule changes, or you're with your grandma for a week, you can pop into the four o'clock class. And you shouldn't feel right at home. You shouldn't feel like an outsider who happened to show up in the class that oh you're not usually here. And so we try really hard I would encourage anybody who's going to attempt to have a homeschool class. There's nothing wrong with that just always make sure that you do things, as a community, as a school have barbecues have all sparring day, you know, anybody can come any race, have a no rank sparring day, have a no ring kata day anything like that, you know, something where you don't put on your belt, you just come and you just work out and get to know the students that you might not be on the same schedule with so that that community keeps being built. Because sometimes our students, the only the only stable is their teacher, right, we're the only one they know. And that can be that can be challenging. And so, there is a stigma and you can't help. We're all human and we all find ways to separate ourselves we just do. And we have to actually work to link and be together. So if we have homeschool students over here and go into class here, and we have adults over here and we've got preschoolers over here and we've got traditional schoolers over here. And they stay in their little bubbles. They all are going to learn well, and they're going to do fine, But if we are able to intentionally merge them sometimes, and then work together, you know, kind of work, separate and together I think we would do ourselves a greater service and so just talking about those ideas for people who want to start up a class at a non-traditional time. Just be aware that you're going to have to be intentional to link those to make those connections.Jeremy Lesniak: The importance of community and building a strong community. This is something I've been advocating for years. You know you brought up the idea of barbecues, people. People need that sense of community and now possibly more than ever and as we move forward I mean some of these things that we're seeing changing in the world right now that I brought up in the last episode in case someone didn't listen to that one you should, but in case you've made it this far and you haven't gone back and listen to that. Recent studies, because so many people so many parents, essentially homeschool their kids for the last couple months of the academic year. Quite a few of those parents said, Hey, This wasn't as bad or as challenging as I thought it would be. And I am more likely to homeschool my children moving forward. No, not all of them, but a larger chunk than you might imagine, so I think we were going to see a lot of this in. You know we don't usually put dates on the episodes that we were doing this but right now it's July 21. And I don't think anybody knows exactly what's going on for the fall in terms of public school and schools being open and everybody's kicking around all these different models, and I will be shocked if we don't see a big chunk of parents say, you know what, I need some sense of control over this. I'm just going to handle it. And for those of you out there that have martial arts schools and you have the ability to get a program like this launch. The time to start planning is right now because a year, you've got a huge opportunity whether you look at it financially or you look at it in terms of benefiting your community on both sides of that. I think there's, there's a lot to be said there so I want to thank both of you for coming on this this was great I learned a ton. And it's funny, I can only gauge from my excitement level of what the guest is saying by one thing. My thought is to, how do I try to make this happen in my life. Despite not having a school I'm thinking okay. I don't think anybody around here does a homeschool program, can I do one. And obviously, the answer is no, but I thought about it for a few minutes right kind of shoehorn that into an already crazy days so I hope I've got a feeling that, that the two of you excited people so thanks for doing that. Thanks for coming on.Jason Hoard: Thanks for having us.Jenni Sui: Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity.Jason Hoard: And maybe there can be a whistlekick martial arts homeschool radio.Jeremy Lesniak: Sure I'm not running it. I’m out of minutes. But yeah. Hey, somebody else can take that take that ball and run with it I'll support them all the way.Jenni Sui: Awesome. One other maybe one other thought that other school owners’ martial arts school owners may not think of is there's a lot of charter schools out there. And you mentioned charter schools Sensei Jason. We were certified through two of our local charter schools as certified instructors. And what that means is we went through background checks and such. And so we're on staff there although we're not paid by them. But what that means is the parents get our name, and our phone number. And basically, we're on a list of safe people for that. And that can be really important so as martial arts school owners. That may be something that you could look into. Find out what your local charter schools require, and then basically you end up in their curriculum as a sports option, or as an art options, however you choose to build your, your services, and the kids are still coming to your school, and they're still, you know abiding by your rules, but sometimes schools, even allow for funding for that so parents can use the charter, the charter school funding to pay us for classes so an option I think most people don't think of. But we have several families that take advantage of that. And that's been a benefit.Jason Hoard: Just to add quickly to the hybrid school we mentioned which is the online component. There is, I think the largest one that I'm aware of is called Connections Academy, which is online. K-12 public school, if you will, but everything's done at all. So that's something else that part of your research. I use our strong Connections Academy. In addition to the homeschool thing because these kids are with our experience it was at home. The Learning coach was the parent with them so they would be guiding them through the lessons, which meant that there was a parent at home during the day with these kids and the physical education portion of it was hey We're going to guide you, but make sure you do this many minutes of physical activity and report it. So, another opportunity there as well. My particular school system is doing, what we're supposed to start next week, believe it or not, and it's Monday through Friday, or if you're not comfortable with that eLearning, so my school system was already set up for that but they also now have an online component, to where there'll be a number of students in the public school, doing public school at home via computer internet type of thing. So I think what you hit a nail on the head that this is going to grow. Whatever it is, whether it's homeschool or just more people being at home or parents just saying I want more control, you know, it's, there's going to be more people that will have time during the day to take advantage of the opportunity of the daytime classes.Jeremy Lesniak: Undoubtedly, for sure. All right. Well, this was awesome, thank you both and. I got a feeling well we'll be talking about this more in some way, as we move forward.Jenni Sui:Thank you so much, appreciate it.