2023-07-19

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

The youth class spent a lot of time on kokutsu-dachi today so, to change things up a bit, I introduced them to Heian Shodan. Now that all the building blocks were there, I thought why not let them try something new? The footwork for the last four moves was a challenge (as it always is when first learning it) but nothing that repetition couldn’t solve.

The adult class only had one attendee tonight - sometimes that happens - so we tailored the entire night to his needs. Most of our time was spent making sure the hips and shoulders are square when punching, and making sure the back leg has enough bend to allow forward hip rotation when blocking. By the end of the night we’d made significant progress and I’d given the student a few “homework” drills to work on for next time.