2023-03-29

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

I introduced the youth class to Heian Shodan tonight. It was against my better judgement, but one of the students is going away for several months and, when I asked him if he had any requests for his last night, he said “I just want to do kata.” Be still my heart! Fortunately, Heian Shodan and Taikyoku Shodan are practically identical, so everyone was able to make it through without much difficulty … even the students who only joined two weeks ago! When we got done, I told them I had good news and bad news: The good news is that a lot of katas have similar parts to them, so you often don’t have to learn everything all over again. The bad news is that you’ll often get confused and switch to a different kata when you hit one of these “shared” sections.

In the second class we went over a few combinations that we worked on last time. Then, when it came to kata, I had them go through their katas very slowly for a change. Going fast masks a lot of errors, and even going “regular speed” can mask a few, so sometimes I like to slow things down to a crawl. Going as slowly as possible really helps point out problems with balance and timing. The easiest place to see this is to compare the first move of Heian Nidan with the first move of Heian Yondan. In both cases, the hands and feet are all supposed to stop at the same time, but it’s much easier to see when they don’t in Heian Yondan because you’re moving so slowly.