Chess Coaches and Comedy

Chess Coaches and Comedy

 

Whether you are coaching kindergartners or senior citizens, comedy is an important element in teaching chess. Your goal is to get the student to come away from the class saying to other students, "Boy, that was fun!"

If your school experience was like mine you might have had classes you looked forward to because you liked the subject but the teacher was so boring he or she ruined the class for you. You also probably had classes that you dreaded because you did not like the subject but the teacher had a sense of humor and you actually enjoyed an otherwise dull subject.

It is important as a chess coach to not "play the fool" and try to get the students to laugh at everything. It is also important not to be the grouchy football coach who only barks our orders and has no sense of humor at all. You need to find a balance between the two extremes where you are in control of what the students do, but also express your sense of humor regularly to the students. If you can get 5-10 good laughs in a ½ hour lecture that would be a good goal.

Many of you probably teach chess to elementary, junior high or high school students. As a child grows, what is funny varies greatly with their age. For the young ones, a little silliness goes a long way. I think every coach has accidentally dropped a piece trying to put it into the pocked of a demonstration board and heard the children laugh as it hit the floor. One time I did it a second time on purpose and the laugh was louder, so I dropped it a third time trying to put it into a pocket and the laughing was even louder. The fourth time was even more hilarious to them. The coach occasionally throughout the lesson making an obvious mistake works wonders for the young ones.

As the children grow they learn empathy, and silliness does not work as well. Audience participation and exaggeration then become good tools. For instance when describing how pawns move and capture I have made the moves 1. e4 ...e5 on the demonstration board and then asked for a volunteer who comes up front. I tell the students, "Pawns are like foot soldiers in the army and only carry a shield and a short spear. I ask the student to pretend to hold a shield bending their arm in from of them as I do and imagine the two shields pushing against each other. I tell them "Because we are both pawns, we are equally strong and we can't push the other foot soldier off their square. We can't stab each other through the shields so I can't kill you. If however there was an enemy piece that was diagonally left or right one square we could use our short sword to stab diagonally left (I stab with an imaginary sword) and diagonally right. I encourage the student to stab diagonally left and right.) But, if there is no enemy piece there, we can't kill them can we? Remember we can only take the place we kill, ("capture" if the school wants political correctness) right? So in this position, what can you do? Nothing! You can't kill me because you can't stab through our shields and there is none of the opponent's pieces diagonally left or right for you to stab. However, if white now plays 2. f4, (Make the move on the demonstration board and have another student play the pawn on f4) now I have the option of stabbing the foot soldier diagonally to the left and taking his place." (Mime stabbing him and encourage him to "die" and you move to replace him- (having other students drag his carcass off the imaginary playing board). If done with exaggeration and the right attitude this will be fun for the kids and get laughs." This kind of active participation and use of imagination can't be done for every point for time restraints, but helps make the class more fun.

For beginning adult chess students many don't necessarily associate chess with fun. If they don't they will most likely not stay with the class/club. If you played word association with new adult students and you gave them "chess" they would probably reply with "difficult" or "hard" or "genius" and not "fun" which would be the last word beginner who has never really played before would come up with. As a chess coach for beginner adults that is your primary job is to get them to come to the class, not because they might avoid Alzheimer's or because they think it would be good for them or because their husband or wife have been pestering them to get out of the house and join a club but because in their mind "Chess = Fun!." Getting beginner adults to have the neural association in their brain "Chess = Fun" is "Job One" for a coach and comedy is an important tool to make the association "Chess class = fun" until they have played enough chess to understand that "chess itself = fun."

Now with adults, you can use audience participation and imagination (which many have lost and is a subject for another article) but you can also add jokes. There are lots of really good chess jokes. You may wish to tell a joke at the beginning of each class to encourage the students to show up on time or just to create a fun tradition. Or you can end your class with a joke to put a positive note to the end of the class. Here if one of my favorite jokes.

I was walking in the park the other day and I came across a man who appeared to be playing chess with his dog. I watched for a minute as the man made a move and his dog picked up a piece in his mouth and to my surprise the dog actually made a legal move and a good one too! I told the man "Wow, that is a smart dog you have!" To which he replied, "Oh, not really, I'm ahead three games to one.

If you decide to become a member of the Silver Knights Alzheimer's Prevention Charity we are adding about 20 other jokes on our Open Forum. If you don't find your favorite chess joke there, you can add yours so that chess coaches, students, club presidents around the world and others can enjoy it. There is also the beginning of a unique collection of colorful chess cartoons being created by Coach Patrick that can be downloaded and used to entertain your students in your newsletters or printed on T-shirts on our website! If you download from the website please consider making a small donation to the charity so that we can continue to save lives from Alzheimer's disease. Sincerely, Patrick Ellis (Coach Patrick- This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

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