Intro classes are always a weird mental situation. You want to pull in as many new people as you can without watering that same sample with people who you know to be worthless long term. What I mean by worthless is someone who isn't really that into it and will never really progress. I want to be able to grab the random athlete who does one or two sports and get him into fencing.
The nerds in an intro group may stick around for years just so they can tell their friends that they fence. I have no problem attracting these kids because they pay the bills. As my Dad says "Every dojo needs its share of Orcs."
This is why I try to focus on the athletic and mental aspects of the sport rather than the "Look, a sword!" side of it. People can respect the benefits of fencing without nerding out about it. The link is to a much larger and interesting lecture where the speaker makes some amazing observations about what it means to "nerd out." If you have a free 2 hours to spend online, the whole thing is totally worth watching.
Regardless of what kind of intro class I am teaching, some kids will want to continue and others will not no matter how hard I try. That's okay because I don't want those 'other' kids to continue anyway. They would drag down the progress of others in their own journey out of fencing. I don't like to admit that because it means that I have to let some things slide in a world that I idealistically envision with more fencers.
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