2022-10-10

2022-10-10, Monday

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

Class is up to five regular attendees now, and everyone seems “solid” in terms of attendance. That’s good. Now I just need more people in my adult class! I got another really good question from someone in the family class about hikite or, rather, the “pre-hikite” reach. Why do we do it? I explained both theories on hikite: The action/reaction theory (to which I do not subscribe) and the grabbing/clearing theory (to which I do). If you’re interested here’s a great (but understandibly one-sided) explaination from Iain Abernethy.

But the question was not “Why hikite?” - it was “Why do we reach before hikite?” and that’s much easier to answer. Indeed, if we agree that hikite is necessary (for whatever reason) then the need for “drawing” implies that the hand be “not drawn” first. And what does a hand look like when it’s not drawn back? Yep … it looks like it’s reaching. So no matter what theory of hikite you believe, you have to reach first.