[Ponte Alto] Seeking Advice for Teaching a class.

[ArtsofPalm at aol.com]

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I am thinking of teaching a class on Kodo.   Kodo is the Japanese Incense
ceremony.   I am brand new at teaching and would be most grateful for the
advice of all the wonderful teachers in Ponte Alto.

Ultimately, I'd like to teach this at Pennsic.  But, I don't think I should
start there :^ ).  I am already planning to talk to the Asian Nights group
about testing my class on them.  But I feel I would need more than one
practice session on this.  I could victimize members of my family... but
let's face it... not everyone has an 'SCA' mindset ;^ )  Does anyone have any
suggestions on how else to prepare?  (Are there any interested 'victims' out
there?)

Supplies and fees to students:   What's a reasonable limit on this?  My most
expensive supply appears to be a calligraphy brush.  It will raise the class
fee from $4-5 to $7-10.  I really want to include the brush because I don't
want to ask students to wash them for the next group.  Nor do I want to have
to do it myself if they do not do a good job.  Finally, without the brush
they have no chance of going back with their stuff and repeating the class.

Time:  I can break the class up into 2 to 3 classes at an hour each.  But,
they would kind of have to be done in progression by the students (IE: each
one is a pre-requisite to the next).  It could go something like this:
       First class would be a history of Kodo, an explanation of how the
ceremony works, plus burning some interesting incense that you don't run into
every day. No conducting the formal ceremony in this class.
       Second class would be the actual kodo ceremony and nothing else (and
doing this in an hour is pushing it.
       A third class could given to let students practice actually conducting
the kodo ceremony themselves.  More explaination of the materials and tools,
and how to use them, would go into this class.
       A possible 4th class could be taught in the future to actually make
the tools.  They are a bit unique, and buying a rudimentary toolset from the
vendors costs $80!  The cups can be a fortune!   I would talk about this in
the third class, and we could make them in the fourth class.

The other option is to just do a 2-3 hour class, depending on whether the
students get to practice conducting kodo themselves.

Thank you for your kind consideration of my questions.

YIS,
Irene Madhaidin