2022-10-17

2022-10-17, Monday

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

I broke out the painter’s tape tonight while teaching Taikyoku Shodan. I find it helpful for helping students remember the path the kata takes across the floor ("embusen"). It’s cheap, and you can mark hard or carpeted floors without leaving any residue behind when peel it up later. As you might expect, I draw out a capital letter “I” on the floor, similar to the image below, but I also make sure to mark the “center” of the pattern, as shown below with the red dot. Why? I do that because, marking the pattern by itself helps students know which direction to _move_s, but marking the center point helps them remember which direction to turn as well. You see, you always turn towards the center point.

Think about it: If we begin the kata from the bottom center of the letter “I”, we go left first, but then have to turn 180° to go back the other way … but which way? Of course, we know that we turn clockwise, but notice how that’s also the direction you’d need to turn to keep that center dot in view. Then, after blocking and punching to the right, we have to turn counterclockwise to go “up the middle” of the pattern. Again, notice how that means turning in the direction of the dot. Now proceed with three punches up the middle of the pattern, ending with a kiai. What’s next? This is the 270° turn, ending up facing to the “right” of the diagram. If you turn clockwise (the “short” way) you’ll lose sight of the center dot. But if you turn counterclockwise (the “long” but correct direction) the center dot will stay in view the whole time.