Many interesting aspects have been discussed in this thread, like teacher attitude, pupil attitude, small vs large board initiation, improvement vs joy... but I 'd like to gently nudge this back to the original statement, which Bill Spight was so kind to summarize as:
Our clubs are no dojos
Maybe not all clubs should be dojos but I'd recommend that at least a few try to be and have
- a structured approach to initiation
- a structured approach to improvement
Without a structured approach, we indeed leave the whole question of how to acquire, retain and improve our people to the randomness of individual attitudes and approaches. I leave aside whether the initiation should be small board stone counting (which I favor), capture go or large boards with territory. Indeed, one size doesn't fit all, but you don't know in advance which size fits whom, so your random approach will not score better than a structured one. In business, they say: focus on the process not the result.
But there's more to the dojo idea. I've been part of the table tennis community. I've been in a small social club and in a large competitive one. The pattern I observe - from small samples, admittedly - is that size and structure are related. Perhaps size needs structure but I hypothesize that well structured clubs will grow larger. Here are a few reasons why clubs with a well structured offering will do well:
- newcomers will get the idea that this club knows what they're doing
- newcomers and avid pupils will be motivated by their teachers' conscious investment
- newcomers have an immediate confidence that they will not be left alone
- there's a sense of belonging to a structure
- there's a clear hierarchy and a vision on how to climb the ladder
- respecting a time schedule and a vision on the content, will induce respect for each individual member
Small social clubs are very nice. People are kind to each other, there's a lot of freedom and banter, but eventually, when it comes to the game, it's every man for himself. There's nothing the club really does for their members' improvement except offering an environment for play. You'll find that the sociable people, who got reasonably strong by themselves, will stay. The newcomers will drop out as will many who want to improve.
The Go community is a very kind and friendly one, but I believe this is one of the reasons why it stays so small. One doesn't observe this kind of freedom and niceness in most other sports clubs. Our clubs are more like pubs. In the end that can be observed as a lack of self esteem. Why would people take a go club or go itself seriously if our clubs don't take themselves seriously?
