2024-05-08

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

Heian Nidan is a challenge for a lot of students because it’s the first time they need to balance on one leg and the first time they’re introduced to executing techniques with the “back” hand. Tonight we spent quite a while on the balance issue. To be clear, I’m talking about the side-kick into knife-hand block that happenns on moves 7 & 8. Just in case you count it differently:

• Move 7 starts from the right-side bottom-fist in back stance and ends after the side kick, balanced on the left leg, having brought the kicking leg back, but having left the right hand still extended after the back-fist strike.
• Move 8 is simply dropping backward into knife-hand block in back stance with the left foot forward. (I say “simply” but we all know it’s not. 😉)

In my experience, the best way to teach this is to add a really long pause between counts 7 and 8. It may seem cruel to expect students to just hang there, balanced on one foot, but (like anything else) balance is improved with practice. Most students will compensate for lack of balance by executing a weak kick, but the trick is to be able to throw the kick and uraken at full strength and still be able to maintain balance afterwards. I tell students they should be able to come down when they’re ready, not when gravity comes knocking.