"Are we having fun yet or what?"

Last night was the first night back at the Salle after the Xmas break. Everyone was in good spirits and their was a lot of joking and banter going on. I am by nature quite a cheery person and was larking about with my students whilst we did a group lesson on the feel of the blade and then I gave a couple of individual lessons. The lessons went pretty well and I think I made my point clear enough but it's fair to say that in between there was much talk about nothing in particular, which was partially my fault. There are times when I just like to have fun and my favourite comedians are the likes of Eddie Izzard and Bill Bailey so the subjects ended up ranging between Clifford the Big Red Dog, Xmas presents, Alex's shoes, coats, wrestling matches between Orang-Utans and Giant Pandas and various other surreal items. I think I suffer from comedy Tourette's syndrome at times as I get an outlandish image or subject in my head and have to follow it through. When people start laughing that tends to encourage me!

The point behind this is; do people learn more when they're having fun and does there come a point where the fun gets in the way of the learning? Also, do people listen and take things in better or worse if the subject is liberally sprinkled with humour? I personally believe in keeping my lessons fun and interesting but is this as effective as someone who never lets a smile get in the way of their subject matter? Am I respected more or less as a coach if I make people laugh occasionally? All these things are important for any coach to consider in terms of the way they present their message and there is never a time in life when a coach should stop learning. The technical content and message of a lesson can be completely obscured by the way it is presented. This was the stuff I was pondering as I drove home, which is when I tend to analyse the lesson and my performance (hard as it might be for my students to believe) and I'm pretty sure that there was a little too much talk last night and not enough doing so I will be taking steps to redress this in the next session. So Students beware!