A lot of the work I do is teaching circus skills to kids.
I teach multiple props, quite often this is for one off sessions but I do longer term projects as well. Diabolo can be a bit frustrating because there is a bit of a hiccup early on before they can really start to learn, then, as we all know tricks can come thick and fast.
Some of my thoughts below. (for longer projects really, for short one offs It's mainly starts, corrections, throws maybe passing)
- Wis had some good tips, especially on the discipline and names front. You are in charge and are responsible for people safety. You should never start a session cold without some kind of warmup or session game. Learn several, this will allow you to control the feel of the sessions, (name games, energy raising, confidence building, controlling, getting over fear of being though foolish in front of others, calming, stage craft games etc).
My simple discipline goes something along the lines of-
'We're all here to have fun and to learn some new skills. It's important to listen to what I have to say as that's the best way to learn things quickly and safely. I can tell if you are listening because you will be looking at me and not talking to anybody else. You will also not be using any props when I talk. It's not fair on everyone else if I have to keep repeating instructions because people aren't listening... If you misbehave or do something dangerous I'll ask you to sit out for 1 minute/2minutes , if it happens again you'll sit out for 5, a third time you will sit out for 10/15 but thats unlikely to happen because if you've been that bad the chances are you will have been asked to leave the session. (if you are in a school tell them that the teacher is free to discipline them however the school does at anytime.) ask them if this sounds fair (so they cant really strop about you disciplining them, if they wont agree to this then you cant teach them in a safe way)
I'm not saying you have to be a complete control freak, you need to pick your battles when teaching but if you have some guidelines it sets the tone and gives you standing if you need to control a wayward session.
After a demo of any prop you should point out anything safety related. easy enough for diabolo - before throwing check that there is nothing to hit overhead, if a diabolo is going to hit somebody please warn them, don't swing the diabolo around as you may hit somebody, make sure you have room for any trick you are trying, stick to the area you should be in and please don't walk trough a group of diaboloists.
You might want to add a bit about getting knots out, how to wind up diabolo strings when finished with them.
Roughly what I think about for tricks and progressions.
Starting, corrections, simple throw and catch with good technique. (instil the need to check over head and demonstrate that you don't need to put loads of effort into the throw, reaching up with dominate hand to catch, keeping the string tight, being parallel to the diabolo before throw etc.)
Stopover (both sides maybe doubles), stopover/Chinese suicides - possibly slowicides (pointing out alignment tips for these moves, looking at the stick to be caught)
Skip under high throw, piro under throw, behind back catch, trampoline bounce over head, open orbits, passing (1 between 2, 1 high one low, along a line, tight string tennis style, distance for fun)
Around the leg/arm/foot (leave variations till later)
Wrapped accelerations -simple like regular acceleration with wrap. When they have better feel move onto thrusted/chinese, wraped orbits etc.
Use this speed for grinds and stringclimbs (leading to crowd pleasers like stickdrop/foot on stick stringclimb)
Suns (simple one that leaves twist, walkaround to untwist or sun back revisit with that helicopter stick swing move) stick forced and regular side suns, stickswap suns, front to back suns, suicides, duicides.
Crosshand catches, throw out, throw to opp crosshand, fritz release, magic knots
Half string catches, throws out, flux capacitor, whip catches (with good technique, from above and below, to duicide, whip with string caught on end of sticks, whip from grind)
Neck bounce, around both arms, around leg variations (bounce, turning, both legs, puppet), cats cradle, lamecide.
Lots of stuff to teach before you need to go down the integral/slack route.
I know some teachers that will push people into trying 2d really early (say after the kid can consistently throw and catch, teaching by passing 1 in, then by getting another student to pass one in), they say this is a good confidence booster. I haven't had the chance to try this really. I can see the pro's and cons. I'll sometimes get a solid shuffle going and hand the sticks to somebody (works well if they are opposite handed)
If a kid wants to learn a specific trick, think about what leads up to that trick and whether they are at the level to learn it yet, will they waste time/get frustrated? If they need to work on the building blocks, show them those moves and ask them to come back when they have got them. Maybe point out that you'll be getting to those moves eventually but you want everyone to get a grounding in certain key moves so they are all rounders. If you say you will do/teach something then you really should get around to it or apologise and ask them to remind you to do it next time.
If you have sub groups of different abilities make sure that they all have something to work on and don't fall into the habit of spending too much time with your star pupils (or the reverse).
See if you can get them to help each other. kids learn well from one another especially if they know each other. I'll sometimes leave out certain trick variations, teach them to one kid and ask them to pass that on.
Give plenty of praise, if they are up for it get them to all show of something they learned in the session. Sometimes if somebody has got a particular trick I'll stop the session and get them to show the rest that move, this can lead others to try it. for show and tell at the end this can be a good place to get some stage craft in.
Anyway there are some of my disjointed thoughts, hope they are of some use.
Seán (not getting out of bed for 22Euros/hr
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