2023-08-30

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

The youth class is mostly 9th kyu now, so we spent a good amount of time working through Heian Shodan, including some time on applying the drawing of the tettsui uchi as a wrist-grab escape, and some time with pads working on generating power with the hammerfist strike. It’s not just the arm, of course - it’s a whole-body, rising and dropping motion.

In the adult class, we had another visit from our Chilean Goju-ryu friend, Patricio Gonzales. After working on some basic jiyu kumite drills and going over everyone’s kata a couple of times, we finished out the evening by inviting him to teach us one of his style’s basic kata - Gekisai Dai Ichi. It was great to be challenged by a relatively simple, but still completely new kata.