2024-10-07

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

It’s “fall break” for many local schools, so classes are a bit small, but that’s okay. Since we’re gearing up for a rank exam next Monday I used the small classes as an opportunity to give each student some personalized tips for improvement between now and then.

Several students in the youth class have trouble rushing through kata, so I told them to pause for a moment after each technique. Naturally that didn’t work, so I had them each do their kata individually and say the word “pause” after each technique, out loud. That worked! So next I had them all perform kata as a group, but told them each to mentally say the word “pause” to themselves after each technique. Success!

In the adult class, most people’s upper bodies are doing the right thing, but they tend to neglect the lower body. Stances have the wrong weight distribution, heels are coming up, toes are pointing in the wrong direction, etc. Each student is a bit different so they each got individual feedback, but the general message was to spend more time worrying about their stances.

Incidentally, I’ve been writing a series of post about the niju kun lately. Be sure to check the posts section from time to time.