2022-05-09

2022-05-09, Monday

Teaching my regular classes at the Ross Farnsworth - East Valley YMCA.

The two young ladies from last Wednesday were back again today. This time both of them, along with their mother, all participated in class, though it appears only the older of the two daughters will be sticking with it for the immediate future. That’s okay! We made it through the “core” for new students: alternate punching, front stance, lunge punch, rising block, and downward block. We even made it through the first four moves of Taikyoku Shodan. It’s amazing how much you can cover when the students are just a couple of years older.

After class, the mother remarked that “This is a lot harder than Zumba”, and we ended up talking about that for a while. I argued that learning a new Zumba dance routine is fundamentally no different from learning new karate “moves” except for two things: combative intent and expectations of precision. In other words, either way you’re learning to move your body in a whole new way to which you may not be accustomed, along with all the feelings of self-consciousness that brings. However, in karate, every “move” has to lead towards ending a self-defense encouter and every move has a “just so” quality of precision. In other words, the margin of error between “right” and “wrong” is much narrower.