2022-04-23

2022-04-23, Saturday

Subbing for ISKF Tempe at the Tempe Family YMCA.

Turnout was pretty good today, but it was a mixed bag in terms of rank: One beginner, one white belt with a bit more experience, a green belt, and a couple of black belts. As usual when this sort of thing happens, it’s important to have drills that can cater to different levels so nobody feels overwhelmed or bored. For example, I might have the white belts do rising block, the colored belts do rising block/reverse punch, and the black belts do rising block/front-leg front kick/reverse punch.

The white belts left a bit early, so the rest of us continued with kata practice. We spent a good deal of time on Heian Yondan, particularly the side kick/elbow strike combinations and the shuto soto mawashi uchi just before the first kiai. For the kick/elbow combination we concentrated on stepping down “offline” to land in an appropriately wide front stance and making sure to elbow the hand instead of slapping the elbow. For the shuto uchi, we discussed making the path less of a wide circle and closer to a straight line. It still curves, but you certainly don’t want the arm straight before it’s almost reached its target.