2022-07-18

2022-07-18, Monday

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

Youth class had three students tonight, which was good as it gave me a couple of “experienced” people to use as examples while helping the new 6-year old student learn the ropes, particularly when it came to yakusoku kumite. We had to get past a little “listening” problem and underscore the importance of not moving when you’re not supposed to move. Specifically, despite being told several times “don’t move”, one student decided to step forward into the gyaku zuki counter at the end of 5-step sparring. Fortunately there were no injuries, but this led us to a very important discussion of what I consistently call the “second most important part of karate training”, which is doing nothing.

That probably bears a bit more explaination, so here we go: When the instructor tells you to do something, you do it, but otherwise, you should be doing nothing (except lisenting, of course). If part of your body is supposed to move during a particular technique, you move it, but any body part not required for that technique should be doing nothing. If you’re practicing kata with a count, you should move on the count, but between counts you shoul be doing nothing, etc. It turns out “doing nothing” is very difficult for some people, particularly small children, and is certainly worth practicing.