2022-07-27
2022-07-27, Wednesday
Teaching my regular classes at the Ross Farnsworth - East Valley YMCA.
We had another new student in the youth class tonight, and may soon have two more! I also had an adult drop by later to ask about class. Slowly, but surely, classes are growing!
It didn’t take long to realize that the new student has trained in something before, because he was able to execute alternate punching and rising block with very little verbal instruction - even getting nuances like the rotation of the wrist correct. I asked his parents after class and, indeed, he’s been training elsewhere but they’re just “shopping around” to see what else is available. That’s good news, but it also means there are likely to be some “habits” from his other style that we’ll need to eliminate.
The adult class was pretty standard most of the way through, but towards the end we branched off and played with applications for the first few moves of Heian Nidan. We started with my favorite:
- Step deeply, to the outside of the attacker’s lead leg, into on oncoming right-handed haymaker, blocking it with the front hand haiwan uke, just above the crease of the elbow, while striking the face with the “back” hand.
- Execute a short punch to the abdomen, encouraging the attacker to lean forward. At the same time, “help” the attacker to lean forward by striking the back of the head with keito uchi.
- Pass the left hand in front of the attacker’s body and use mawashi tettsui uchi to unbalance the attacker over your front leg.
But we also worked on a new application:
- Step slightly inside the attacker’s stance and block the attacker’s left-hand haymaker with the back hand while executing tettsui uchi to the face with the front hand.
- Grab the attacking wrist with the back hand and twist it downward with hikite, pinning it to your waist. At the same time, bring the front hand to your opposite ear in preparation for the next step.
- Move the front foot to the outside of the attacker’s leg and drop the left hand onto the inside of the attacker’s elbow to execute a throw very similar to Aikido’s version of sumi otoshi.
Granted, those may be hard to follow from just the written word, but give them a go. Yes, the traditional Shotokan “bang, bang, bang” applications work fine, but I think there’s real value in exploring less “percussive” applications as well.
