ok, so this poll ran for quite a while since i was on a hiatus of sorts. we had 31 respondants, and i have to admit that i am surprised by the results.
- only three people practice less than three hours each week.
- thirteen people practice between three and five hours.
- twelve people practice between five and ten hours.
- three hardcore taidoka practice over ten hours each week.
so the vast majority of those responding to this poll practice somewhere between three and ten hours every week — that’s fantastic. i had expected most folks for practice less than that. though i had assumed that the three to five hour group would be the largest (and this turned out to be the case), i was very surprised to see that so many students are practicing in excess of five hours a week.
i couldn’t be happier about that, especially since my schedule has prevented me from getting in more than five hours in a single week for the past month. with any luck, my work schedules will even out soon and allow me to get on a steady taido routine again. one thing that will help out will be the addition of a two-hour sunday review session we’ll be adding to the docket at gerogia tech in january, bringing the total available instruction hours each week to five. this should be a big help to students who are attempting to balance consistant practice with demanding academic schedules (for those who don’t know, georgia tech is a brutally difficult school).
i’m not sure about the rest of the world, but it appears to me that two or three classes a week is the standard for american taidoka, with each class at the main dojo lasting about 45 minutes. when i was in japan, my dojo trained twice a week too, but each session lasted from two to three hours. i’m curious how much training time is available to students in other countries.
