2022-11-21

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

Tonight, following last Wednesday’s kyu exam, I promoted my “senior” student to 9th kyu. Her test was exemplary. As I mentioned last time, I delay results until the next class so I have time to prepare written feedback for each examinee. That gives us both a record of what the student did well and where we’re needing to see improvement in the future.

Tonight we introduced soto-uke and uchi-uke to our yakusoku kumite practice. Students begin blocking chudan oi-zuki with gedan barai, but since we now have all five of the “basic” blocks under our belt, it made sense to give it a shot. We didn’t try it with shuto-uke as that typically requires stepping offline, but I explained why, and promised we’d try it soon, along with starting to block mae-geri keage.