For Instructors
The instructor side of Mat Manual: teaching craft, curricula, and running the school. Written for the person who plans the class, runs the grading, and keeps students training — and kept separate from student content.
How a class is built and how mixed levels share one room: the lesson systems and formats that replace improvising the night before.
- The Technique of the Day TrapIt is twenty minutes before the evening class and you are at the front of an empty room, deciding what tonight's lesson…
Companion guide: Lesson Planning System
- Teaching Two Classes in One RoomYour beginners class has eleven people in it. One is a woman in her second week who is still learning how to make a fis…
Companion guide: Split-Class Playbook
- Running on Empty: Instructor Burnout Is a Load ProblemIt starts respectably. You teach the Monday and Wednesday kids, the Tuesday and Thursday adults, the Saturday open mat,…
Companion guide: The Sustainable Teaching Week
- Great Assistants Are Grown, Not FoundEvery growing school hits the same wall. The head instructor can no longer be everywhere: two classes at once, a beginn…
Companion guide: Assistant Instructor Training Pack: The Selection Scorecard, the Four Stages, and the Gates
The systems off the mat that decide whether a school keeps its students: the first ninety days, and a grading day that runs on time.
- The First 90 Days Are the Whole GameIt is a Tuesday night, an hour before class. You are looking at the roster because a parent just asked about renewing,…
Companion guide: First 90 Days Checklist and Contact System
- Grading Day Without the ChaosThe test starts in twenty minutes and three things are already wrong. A parent is asking what time it begins, and the h…
Companion guide: The Belt Testing System
Curricula — the Curriculum Builder
Mat Manual's software for this hub's subject: a rotating curriculum builder. Enter the required techniques, forms, and other requirements for your program, set the cycle length, and the builder deals them across the cycle with even coverage and a grading-ready finish.