A guiding principle that must be established before we finalize any type of rotating curriculum to our schedule is curricular priorities. These priorities define what we value most when developing our black belt standard.
Silent River Kung Fu curricular priorities are as follows:
Six Harmonies (White Stripe) - Forms
Keystone Principles (Red Stripe) - Basic stances/kicks/blocks/fundamentals
Vocabulary of Motion (Yellow Stripe) - Combinations/footwork/sparring skills
Wuxin (Black Stripe) - Applications/grappling
Dynamic Control (Orange Stripe) - Weapons
Traditional Tenets (Blue Stripe) - Lion/Dragon Dance
Not included in these priorities is Wude (Green Stripe) - Character Development; as that curricular ideal is non-physical and the majority of the development will take place outside of the structured class during special events and private time.
Dynamic Control (Orange Stripe) and Traditional Tenets (Blue Stripe) are both ranked equally at the bottom of the curricular priority list as being the least important contributors to the physical development of a black belt. However! It should be noted that while they are considered the least important contributors to helping our students become black belts, they are the MOST important contributors to the definition of what makes SRKF unique from other martial arts schools. Weapons and Lion/Dragon dance are the main values where no other school can compete with us. Therefore they are very important to the school, not so important to the students.
With our curricular priorities defined and guiding us, the next step in developing a rotating curriculum is to define our values within each curricular ideal. Using our Six Harmonies (White Stripe) as an example, we may decide that our priorities for earning that stripe are ordered:
Sequence
Technique
Flow
However if we reflect upon the evolution of Hsieh Chien, we can see how prioritizing sequence can become the root of mediocrity in our system. Hsieh Chien was conceived and implemented all within 30 minutes of a Young Dragon Class. I was leading a drill of combinations and decided to keep adding techniques to see how far I could get the students to go. By the end of 30 minutes I had a sweating group of kids who were loving every single second of the class and who had memorized the entire sequence (as did I). I slapped a name on the sequence and made it a curricular form on the spot.
Over the next twenty years, we all sucked the fun and the life out of the Hsieh Chien because we did not teach it the way the I originally taught it. I taught it for fun and to make the class feel challenged and accomplished while we worked on vocabulary of motion. After that first class we all shifted our priority for Hsieh Chien to be about teaching the sequence, not having fun, not perfecting vocabulary of motion.
The problem with the way we teach Hsieh Chien is the exact problem we have with every single form we teach. We prioritize sequence at the expense of energy, fun, flow, inspiration, and technique. By the very definition of the six harmonies we should now better.
Therefore our priorities when teaching the six harmonies must shift to (or something similar):
Fun, creative repetition
Technique
Flow
Sequence
Ideally, sequence should be a byproduct of everything else.
Once we establish our curricular value priorities and our priorities within each curricular ideal, we can begin to establish a logical rotating curriculum schedule that reflects what is important as opposed to only reflect what is balanced.
If we expand upon the concept that sequence should be a byproduct of everything else, the same logic applies to Keystone Principles (Red Stripe). We should not have to dedicate any time to Keystone Principles as the Keystone Principles are part of every curricular ideal that we teach. We just need to dedicate focus to the keystone principles when we are teaching everything else.
The bottom line is creativity is key. We do not have to teach Keystone Principles and Forms by just performing the Keystone Principles and the Forms. There are creative ways of doing fun things where we can focus on our priorities within the curricular ideals without hitting them dead on in a boring and uncreative way.