2023-07-31

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

Tonight was another side-kick night in the adult class. With kyu grading coming up on August 23, we really need to work on them. Nailing the difference between the two side kicks is another example of something we start to take for granted at “advanced” ranks. But it’s really hard for beginners, who’ve probably never had a reason to toss their legs out to the side like that, to wrap their minds (let alone their bodies) around doing so in two distincly different ways.

In other news, Sensei Stan Hirohata stopped by to visit tonight, along with a couple of guests visiting from California. Sensei Hirohata started the first YMCA karate club in Mesa back in 1970, and that’s him on the back cover of “Best Karate” volume 1.