2024-06-10

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

Tonight’s youth class had only two attendees. It’s summertime and many of my students’ families are on vacation … it happens. The good news is that I got to spend the entire class working on kata with the two students who did attend. Both started at the same time and are working on Taikyoku Shodan. As usual, I broke out my roll of blue painter’s tape and marked out the embusen on the floor. Then we went through it again, and again, and again. At first, I counted out loud for them. Then I had them count out loud. Then I had one of them count the even numbers and the other count the odd numbers. Then I had them count to themselves in their heads. By then, they had it.

Of course, who was counting and how wasn’t really the point. The point was to vary things slightly each time so it didn’t become boring and monotonous for the students. Karate training tends to be very repetitious, and it’s that way by design. Adults generally understand this and can cope with “the grind” of doing things over and over and over again. With children, it helps to make sure something changes every time, even if it’s just who’s counting.