Hello, on Thursday I'm starting up my after school Taekwondo session that will be for both students and teachers.

The great majority of people coming will be absolute beginners - does anyone have any tips or activities that would be good to start off my group?

The "touch shoulders" game can be a nice way of breaking the ice. I used to do this at a children's residential weight management camp where we did a four week introduction to martial arts to promote activity. I also do this with my adult kickboxing class every so often and it gets smiles on the faces.

You get a partner and you have to try and touch their shoulders whilst trying to stop them doing the same. Then you switch partners.

You can mix it up by doing touch head, elbows or knees (what out for bumping heads!) or do all in a specific order and make it competitive.

Another thing you could do is get some wood to get an adult and a child to break. I suppose it depends on numbers whether you get a piece for every participant. Just talk them through an easy technique like an elbow and then get them to break it.

The main tip I would give is to take it slow with them in terms of technique. Concentrate on a few things, do lots of diguised repetition. Have a class plan, but be flexible and adapt to how the class is going.

You can also preframe them about what they are going to be doing in the next class to try and get a "wow" factor.

Kids aren't my area of expertise, so go with your teaching instinct to keep people's attention.

Good luck this week and the coming weeks.

Well, I started my after school training class and overall, it went quite well.

One thing I noticed though, I marketed it quite heavily (but still more to go yet) that I thought was a bit of a shame was I had several girls come up to me saying that they wanted to have a go - but then the next day came back to me to say they couldn't come because their fathers wouldn't let them. I had that happen at least three times, something I will try to address at the upcoming parents evenings but an interesting drawback I noticed nonetheless.

Glad it went well and you'll get more people as time goes by.

Hows it all going with this Lesley?

Well, the first lesson went well. Had about 5 teachers but only 3 kids.

The teachers are getting well into it though and there are more coming this week!

The word is spreading with the students at school, they will come in slowly as word spreads but I haven't finished promoting it with them yet.

They are all beginnners so have been teaching them the basics, they call said they enjoyed it though and will be coming back for more.

I enjoyed it as well!

Congrats on a great start to your program