2023-10-17

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

I’ll be honest - it’s been a few weeks since I’ve written anything on here, and I have no one but myself (and perhaps Bethesda) to blame. If I were to look for a silver lining, it’d be that karate training is largely unchagned from week to week. It’s all about repetition and muscle memory - at least at the lower ranks.

Despite a couple of weeks of sagging attendance, owning mainly to fall break at local schools, tonight’s classes were very well attended, with seven in the youth class and five in the adult class. Our next round of kyu gradings is scheduled for December 13, and everyone is making good progress. The 9th kyu students are working on Heian Shodan, with emphasis on transitioning stances between the last four moves. Meanwhile, the 7th kyu student is shoring up Heian Nidan, especially the part between the fourth knife-hand block and the morote-uke.

In other news, I’m heading for Illinois later this week. My karate organization back home, American Shotokan Karate, holds seminars and dan gradings semi-annually, generally in April and October. Given that October coincides with my wife’s and stepdaughter’s birthdays, I generally make it back for that one. My good friend Sensei David Bracklow of ISKF Tempe will be covering my classes on Wednesday, and all of next week, while I’m out of town.