2024-04-08

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

With a rank exam coming up in just two days, we had a lot going on in class tonight.

The youth and family class was all about test preparation. I ran everyone through what they could expect to see on their test and I think everyone is capable of positive results. Our two newest students, having joined only a couple of weeks ago, couldn’t keep up with much of the practice exam, but they got a good look at what’s going to be expected of them in a few months, so they still got something out of it.

The adult class was a bit different as we had three guests in class, all of whom are black belts from other dojos: One local, one from South Dakota, and one from Germany. Several of the mudansha in this class will be taking a kyu grading on Wednesday as well but, for the most part, I just ran a “normal” class. I ran everyone through kihon for about 40 minutes before breaking the group apart to work on kata. Our German guest had expressed an interest in helping to teach, so I let her run my 7th kyu student through kata for the remainder of class. Meanwhile I took the rest of the class and worked on everyone’s kata, with a focus on the importance of completing turns before executing techniques.