2022-12-06

Subbing for ISKF Tempe at the Tempe Family YMCA.

We worked on Tekki Shodan again tonight, and I think most students have got it memorized up through the first kiai. It’s far from perfect, of course, but we may be far enough along to start talking about applications. (We’ll see how it looks on Thursday.) We spent the balance of the night working on yakusoku kumite using various stances, blocks, and counterattacks. I keep telling the students that they need a “plan B” when doing any kind of sparring drill. Sometimes you land too far away and a reverse punch just isn’t going to work … so you have to kick instead. On the other hand, maybe you land too close and you have to throw an elbow. The point I was trying to make is that you can’t just assume that “downward block/reverse punch” is going to work 100% of the time. You need to understand how things might go wrong and have enough tools in your bag of tricks to compensate.