Your Classroom Zone

Your classroom zone is certainly one of the most important zones inside your school. If your students aren’t comfortable with the cleanliness,

Let’s start with the teaching floor itself. It must be cleaned on a regular basis and safe. If your workout area consists of torn, old carpet or carpet glued down on cement without padding, you’re sending a message to your students that safety is not important to you.

Instead use firm, padded mats that are appropriate for the type of activities your students will be performing. For example, if you’re teaching throws, you’ll need mats that are similar to what is used for Judo tournaments. If you’re teaching kickboxing, then you may be able to use more of the type of mats that are used in gyms to pad the weight area or a “jigsaw style” mat. You wouldn’t however have students doing throws solely on a less padded jigsaw mat.

Many schools will mark an X where the students are to stand during class which is helpful for keeping kids out of danger with enough room to
work safely. Others may use a different mat color such as red to show where the out of bounds is and signal the students to stay away from those mats to keep them from getting too close to mirrors for example.

Your classroom training equipment such as pads, weapons, and shields must be in good shape. Using pads that are old and have literally had the stuffing kicked out of them are a potential safety hazard and gives the message that the school doesn’t care.

Sell off your used targets and shields to students before they become over-used and then use the money to purchase new ones for the classroom. This way your students get a discount off of the regular retail price and your classroom always has nice, new equipment that looks great.

Make your instructor’s station for attendance, student cards, event announcement lists, etc. are clean, organized, and professional.

Mirrors are cleaned daily and instructors should spot-check the floor throughout the day for potential obstacles or hazards.