Ideas needed for Red Nose day

[malk103]

Trying to get together some ideas for next Friday's lesson as it falls on Red Nose Day, for those not in the UK this is a fund raising day using comedy, doing silly things, wearing daft stuff (like large white pajamas...)
A few other places are doing endurance tests and a local TKD club are doing a kickathon so thought we should maybe get involved.

It would need to be something out of the ordinary, something everyone could do as we have beginners, kids and some who aren't extremely fit.
It would also need to be something that the average non Karateka could understand as an amazing task and not just doing Karate for an hour.

I would be happy doing Kata but the beginners and lower grades might get a bit bored with only knowing 2 or 3 Kata.
Another thought is a set of events and several small teams, you do an activity for 5 minutes and then move onto the next event, Kata, Kumite, Combinations, Sparring, wood breaking etc, etc... The task would be non stop Karate but some of our lessons are like that anyway.
Or set a number of kicks/punches to achieve in an hour?

[D.Ram]

A self-defense demo, perhaps - starting with kihon-ippon demos and then more variety with demo's of free-hand attacks, sticks, knives, guns, etc?

[Bob Davis]

Probably not a lot of help given the local TKD group are doing something similar but for the last couple of years I've done the 1,000 kick challenge with my lot.

For the younger ones I'd suggest splitting them into teams of 2 doing the thousand between them (1,000 kicks is a lot for anybody). We'd typically do sets of 50, 25 off each leg, then swap over so they get a break between sets and a chance to encourage each other. The parents all come in to help out, holding the pads (I don't like the idea of anybody kicking fresh air for a 1000 reps in one session), doing the counts etc... so it's quite an inclusive thing.

Again, the older ones typically split into teams, this is as much for my benefit as anyone else's, (you've seen me so you can imagine ), we'll each do the full 1,000 in sets of 100, 50 off each leg, then swap kicker and holder. The kids like to finish before the instructors and, as you can imagine, they invariably do. All finished up with a "bring your own food and drink party" in the hall. Always seems quite popular and (in a dojo of 15) we raised about £500 last time.

There are obviously other things you can do but this is the easy option (and I use the term advisedly ) as the number sounds impressive, even if you don't do karate, and it's easy to get sponsored for.

[malk103]

Due to last minute planning we had to keep in mind their normal lesson so went for a Karatethon, non stop 3K's!
A lot of the kids did us proud with sponsorship within only a week they have managed to raise a few hundred - final figure will be in next week.

I lost my voice near the end as I had the Kata section, also trying to breath when you have a red nose stuck on your face.....

We worked them hard but everyone really enjoyed it, and it was a benefit for the grading next month.
I think next time we will be more creative!