2025

2025-01-06

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

Last night’s class was the first of the new year. We went over kata and wrist-grab escapes from kata in the youth class. Then, in the adult class, we spent some time on basics and kata before starting to work on kumite drills (as usual), which is where I diverged onto a tangent about focus.

Several students were dropping their hands, becoming disconnected from their partners, fidgeting with uniforms, or scratching itches and fiddling with their hair during kumite drills.

Nope.

I explained that how you practice is how you perform. If you let yourself get distracted during practice, you’ll do the same if you ever have to use your skills “for real.” I explained that it’s a question of remembering what’s important. Your itchy nose isn’t the enemy … the enemy is the enemy. Keep your focus. Stay connected. Pay attention. Just like texting while driving, forgetting what’s important and not paying attention can get you seriously hurt, or worse.

2025-02-05

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

Thanks so much to Sensei Dave Bracklow of ISKF Tempe and Sensei Barry O’Brien for covering my classes while my wife and I were in Thailand for two weeks of teaching English and a week of vacation. All the students seemed happy to see me. Maybe they miss me, but maybe my subs were just working them extra hard while I was gone. I’m good either way. I had one student demonstrate a remarkable increase in speed since I left. I really don’t care how they improve, so long as they improve.

We have a rank exam coming up on February 19, so I went through everyone’s attendance cards and let them know who’s definitely eligible and who’s potentially eligible if they don’t miss class between now and then.

2025-02-10

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

We’re having a bit of trouble with distance, so I’ve come up with a new analogy that I’ll probably expand in a full blog post but here’s a bite-sized version: I tell the students to think about getting ketchup out of the fridge. Importantly, they can’t reach the ketchup if their hand never goes inside the fridge. Punching is the same way. If they stop their punch short of the target, they’ll never really hit the target. The target is the fridge, and the ketchup is inside, so you need to be at the right distance to reach inside the fridge if you ever want to get the ketchup. It sounds like a silly analogy, but everyone, young and old, understood. The analogy also works for foot position but that’s a story for another day.

2025-02-12

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

I threw some new kihon combinations at the students tonight, the most challenging of which were:

• Starting left foot forward with right hand out: Kizami-zuki, then gyaku-zuki, then stepping forward with rear-leg mae-geri keage, before landing with gyaku-zuki.
• Same as above, but with mawashi-geri instead of mae-geri.

In working on these combinations, there were two main issues:

1. The final punch was happening after the kicking foot landed (instead of at the same time).
2. Students were letting their hands “wander” during the kick instead of leaving them in position from the reverse punch.

The first was easy to identify and easy for most people to fix. Just punch earlier! The second was a bit harder because it’s very natural for people to move their hands when they kick. There’s a primal fear of falling, shared by all mammals, that’s very hard to overcome. So rather than overcome it, it’s best to avoid it. How? By improving your balance. If you don’t feel off balance while kicking, you won’t be afraid of falling. And if you’re not afraid of falling there’s no need to flail your arms for balance. So what’s the solution? I recommend slow kicking practice, emphasizing good balance and muscle

2025-02-17

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

I made a mistake. More specifically, I made an assumption. Not only did it make a you-know-what out of me, but it almost ended up getting me knocked on my you-know-what. Here’s the setup:

We were working on Heian Nidan. Students were running through it as I walked around the class making corrections. There was a student coming towards me, and he’d just completed the spear-hand thrust with a kiai (move #11).

I knew that this student’s next move was a 270° counterclockwise turn and a step forward, so I assumed I was perfectly safe standing right where I was. Unfortunately, the student coming at me got this kata confused with Heian Sandan, and followed the spear-hand thrust with a spinning horizontal hammer-fist strike in kiba dachi … right into me.

No harm; no foul, and we all had a good laugh.

Lesson learned: Do not assume students are going to perform kata correctly, or even perform the correct kata, even if that means looking right at you as they smash into you. 🤷

2025-02-19

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

I had a small kyu grading this evening, so I was compelled to give my spiel about testing. Karate testing isn’t like testing in school, where you’re somehow “behind” if you don’t take the same test on the same day as everyone else in your “grade.” Karate testing is more like testing for your driver’s license: You need to have a minimum number of hours “behind the wheel” to be eligible for the test, so:

1. If you do not meet the minimum requirement, you cannot take the test. (I’m not saying I don’t make exceptions, but it’s up to students to advocate for themselves) and,
2. Just because you meet the minimum requirement doesn’t mean you should take the test. You should wait until you’re ready.

Just the same, I think the test went well and was certainly a positive experience for everyone who participated. As usual, results will be announced on Monday.

2025-03-05

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

I had to travel back to Illinois again last week. Thank you to Sensei Barry O’Brien for covering my classes while I was gone.

We spent the first half of tonight working on kata in the adult class, starting with Heian Shodan and working up through Heain Yondan. There were plenty of questions, and one student even apologized for asking so many questions, but I love questions. Questions mean the students are thinking and wanting to know more. If I know the answer to the question, that’s great - I share it with them. If I don’t know the answer, that’s great - I get to take the question home and continue my own learning before coming back to share it with them. Yes, of course there’s such a thing as too many questions, or inappropriate questions, or even inappropriately timed questions (save those for after class), but if I ask for questions, it’s fair game.

The second half of the evening was devoted to kihon - lots of it, and at an increased pace. I was hoping for less thinking and more doing. The main takeaway of the evening was consistency. I want good technique, sure, but I want consistent technique more. If your technique is consistent you can improve it. If it’s not, then you lack the baseline you need to make those improvements. What does “kick higher” mean if your kick is all over the place to begin with?

2025-03-10

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

We worked a lot on kumite tonight, in both classes. Specifically, we worked on maai (間合い). Maai is often translated as “distance” but it also encompasses the relative angles between opponents. Assuming a similarly sized attacker, if he’s in range, then so am I, but part of maai is getting to a place where it’s easy to apply my techniques while making it difficult for him to do so.

I often use the example of pre-modern naval combat to describe this “angling” aspect of maai. Naval vessels had more guns mounted on the sides of the ship and very few pointing straight forward or backward. Thus, the best strategy was get to a place where your enemy was to your side while you were to his front or rear. (i.e. You have more guns pointing at him than he has pointing at you.) Karate is the same way.

We used kihon ippon kumite to practice this idea, where the defender needs to step off the line of attack but not backwards, avoiding the attack, but keeping the attacker in range. This can get frustrating for students because, while I can tell them to step off at an angle, I can’t tell them what angle. They have to do that calculus themselves, based on the relative height of their attacker, and even then it’ll change depending on how deeply the attacker chooses to step.

To ease that frustration, I compare this drill to practicing in a batting cage. I can tell you how to stand, how to hold the bat, etc., but I can’t tell you exactly when or where to swing because the ball is going to have a slightly different position and speed each time. You need to be able to “read the ball.” Karate is the same way.

2025-03-12

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

Tonight the adult class spent the whole night reinforcing what we worked on Monday - distancing and angles in yakusoku kumite. We started with “vanilla” one-time attack drills, with the defender stepping back and off to the side a bit. Each partner did it five times in a row. (To be clear, it wasn’t five-step sparring - it was one-step sparring five times in a row.) This helped reinforce getting the right distance and angle with this particular partner. Then we rotated to switch partners, which changed the distance, and did it five times again. This continued until we had exhausted all permutations of partners. Then we switched it up so you could only counterattack with elbow strikes, which drastically changed the distance. People who normally had trouble getting close enough to counterattack with a punch really had to get close to strike with and elbow.

2025-03-17

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

Tonight’s adult class continued with the recent focus on kumite drills. We started with yakusoku kumite and then moved from there into a variation where the attacker just keeps going, pushing the defender across the floor, while the defender blocks, counters, and gets back in front of the attacker before continuing. Students had some challenges with this, so I promised to come up with a progressive drill for next time.

2025-03-19

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

As promised, we spent this evening expanding on the drill we finished with on Monday. It went in progressive stages, adding a bit more difficulty each time. Each of these progressive variations is done first with a count and then without a count. Doing them with a count gives students the opportunity to get accustomed to the “rules” of the drill. Doing it without the count then adds a variable, with attackers able to vary their timing and defenders getting practice “reading” the attacker.

The increasingly complex “stages” of the drill went like this:

1. Start with “vanilla” yakosoku ippon kumite. One side attacks, the other side defends and counters, and then both sides “reset” for the next iteration. This stage is static - staying in the same place. Partners change roles every 10 attacks, allowing each partner to have several chances to “dial in” on proper distance. The challenge here is for the defender to get off the line of attack while maintaining proper distance and orientation for an effective counterattack.

2. Next, instead of “resetting” after every attack, the attacker stays in position and the defender resets in front of the attacker, allowing partners to move across the floor in a straight line. The attacker’s job is fairly easy - just step forward and attack. The defender’s job is more complicated - block, counter, and get back into position as quickly and smoothly as possible. Once they reach the other side of the floor, partners switch roles and come back. The main challenge in this version is the defender’s tai-sabaki, getting back into place in front of the attacker.

3. This stage adds multi-directional movement. Neither side is allowed to reset. When the attacker attacks, the defender still has to defend and counter, but is now allowed to move anywhere in relation to the attacker and neither side resets. This means the attacker’s next attack has to be able to cope with the defender’s new position, wherever that may be. This version puts a greater challenge on the attacker, who must now cope with the defender’s new position, wherever that may be. Because this version no longer moves across the floor predictably, have students switch roles after every 10 attacks. I liken this version to a game of chess, because the defender isn’t just thinking about avoiding the attack, but also finding a position that makes the next attack more difficult.

2025-03-25

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

Tonight’s adult class repeated the drills I talked about last time, starting with yakusoku ippon kumite and proceeding up to a sort of “1-time free-sparring” where the defender’s job is to position himself where it’d be difficult for the attacker to press the attack.

More interesting (to me, anyway) was the conversation we had at the end of class about the tyranny of diminishing returns when it comes to one’s rate of learning over time. I let the brown belts know that they were at a frustrating stage of their development where each incremental step of learning seems to take longer and longer than it did in the beginning. Like “leveling up” in a game, going from 10th level to 11th level takes much more experience than going from 1st level to 2nd level does.

Being a white belt can be intimidating, but showing improvement is easy because you’re awful at everything. Learning gets a bit slower at the mid-kyu grades. Your improvement on lunge punch may slow down, but you just learned back kick and you’re awful at it so there’s plenty of room for rapid improvement there.

As you continue, karate is less and less about learning “new” things and more and more about polishing the “old” things. This can be discouraging, and this is when many people quit to find a new hobby - one where they can get that rapid “awful to okay” development again.

But we’re not just teaching techniques, are we? We’re also teaching patience, perseverance, and discipline, and those things need to be practiced too. This is often the stage where students are asked to start helping with instruction and learn that doing a thing and teaching a thing are two overlapping, but very different, skills.

In the end, I encouraged the brown belts to push through this period of their development. It can feel like a grind sometimes, but it can also be very rewarding.

2025-03-27

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

Most of tonight’s adult class was spent going over kata. We did each kata at least three times, at different speeds: slow, “normal”, and fast.

When we did each kata slowly, I asked students to go so slowly that each move lasted five seconds (counting “one-thousand one, one-thousand two, etc., to help slow things down.) When we got done, I asked them what they learned. Someone started with, “Going slow is really hard!”, but I asked why … what made it hard? We settled on two things: Balance and timing.

It’s easy to gloss over problems with balance and timing when you’re moving fast. The less time there is between picking up a foot and putting it back down, the less time there is to lose your balance. By forcing students to go very, very slowly, they’re forced to concentrate on keeping their center of gravity over their base at all times.

Likewise, everything is supposed to stop moving at the same time, but it’s easy to make it look like that’s the case when you’re moving fast. When you move slowly, it’s harder to disguise the fact that your hands are done before your hip is, etc. (This is one of the reasons the first two moves in Heian Yondan is so difficult.)

Moving at normal speed is easy, right? It’s what you “normally” do. There isn’t much to say about it since it was just a stepping stone on the way to the next iteration.

The third iteration of each kata was “fast”, but but not the way you might think. I told students I wanted the individual techniques to be fast, but I still wanted there to be pauses with relaxation between the techniques. I counted it for them once, demonstrating the length of pauses that I wanted them to maintain between techniques, then had them do it once on their own like that. Then I hit them with it: Why wouldn’t you go that fast all the time? Why isn’t that your “normal” speed? I suggested that their “normal” speed should be much closer to this version.

2025-03-31

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

The bulk of class time was spent going through everyone’s kata. Based on attendance, that meant Taikyoku Shodan, Heian Nidan, Heian Yondan, Tekki Shodan, and Bassai Dai. Obviously, that took a while. We went through each one at least twice: Once with a count and once without. As always, I asked for questions. I like to ask the people working on a given kata their questions, but I also like to ask the beginners, most of whom are just seeing these kata for the first time, for questions. Their questions are often interesting because they don’t come with any of the “baggage” of someone who’s been slogging their way through a kata for months or years. They see it with fresh eyes and have fresh questions.

The two questions that we ended up spending the most time working through revolved around kosa-dachi and the move right after the second elbow strike in Heian Yondan (shuto gedan barai w/ jodan uke followed by shuto soto-mawashi uchi).

I explain kosa dachi as a transitional stance. It’s not about what you’re doing; it’s about what you’re about to do. The only time it generally appears as part of kihon is when stepping across practicing yoko geri. It’ the halfway point of the step, just before chambering the kick, so it’s clearly a transition between what’s often a kiba-dachi on either end.

In kata, kosa-dachi almost always shows up right before a pivot. In Heian Yondan it appears just at the first kiai, and in Bassai Dai it’s the first move, but in both cases the following move is an “unwinding” pivot into the next move.

Moving to the second question, the combination after the second elbow strike in Heian Yondan is often described with the left hand blocking a kick as the right hand simultaneously blocks a punch to the face, then moves to a knife-hand strike with the right hand while the left hand does … something? I find that just as contrived and unlikely as the simultaneous kick/punch that the attacker supposedly tries (twice no less) at the beginning of Heian Sandan.

I prefer to think of this as a right-handed rising block against a right-handed punch to the face, which then grabs and extends the attacking limb as the left hand executes a bottom-fist strike against the attacker’s floating ribs. The left hand then clears the attacking limb out of the way so the right-handed shuto-uchi can reach the target.

2025-04-02

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

Monday’s dip into Heian Yondan applications was well received, so we continued with review of what we’d already covered, and added a few more. Specifically:

Moves 5-7: This is the part that starts by stepping the feet together with the hands in “cup-and-saucer” position (#5), followed by the side snap kick/backfist combination (#6), and ending with the stepping forward elbow strike (#7). The best application I’ve seen for this is a response to a same-side lapel grab. In this case, the attacker is using his right hand to grab the defender’s left lapel.

1. The defender begins by reaching over and grabbing the attacker’s right hand with his own, then bringing his left hand up underneath the attacker’s hand, using both hands to twist the attacker’s grasp off the lapel and down to the defender’s right hip while simultaneously applying pressure to the attacker’s elbow with his own. (This is the application of the “cup-and-saucer” position.) If done correctly, both attacker and defender will have pivoted to face the same direction.
2. The defender then uses his left leg to kick out the attacker’s right knee, while simultaneously using his left hand to strike the attacker’s face with a back-fist strike. This tends to disorient the attacker and bring him to a kneeling position.
3. The defender now grabs the attacker’s hair with his left hand and strikes the attacker in the head with his right elbow, while stepping forward, possibly crushing the attacker’s ankle in the process.

Move 11: This is what looks like a low knife-hand sweep with the left hand while blocking high with the right, followed by a high block with the left hand while attacking with a right-handed knife-hand strike. However, as I explained last time, I tend to frown on applications that imply simultaneous kick/punch combinations from the attacker. Instead, I prefer thinking of this in two parts:

1. The attacker uses his right hand to punch the defender in the head. The defender counters with a right-handed rising block that transitions to a grab, pulling the punch up and to the right, while simultaneously striking the attacker’s groin with a left-handed knife-hand strike.
2. The defender’s left hand then comes up to take control of the attacker’s right arm, pulling it up and back, while the right hand comes around to strike the attacker in the neck or jaw with an outward swinging knife-hand strike.

Moves 25-27: This is the head grab, rising knee strike to the face, turn into a knife-hand block in back stance, and the final step forward. The grab and knee strike are fairly self-explanatory, but I prefer to think of the turn that follows as a throw against the same attacker, rather than turning to face a new attacker. Following the knee strike with the right knee, the defender simply steps down behind the attacker’s front (right) leg and twists his hips to throw the attacker forward, before stepping forward to strike him again.

2025-04-07

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

Tonight’s adult class was entirely kata. We went through the first 7: Taikyoku Shodan through Tekki Shodan. Some of those were beyond particular students’ “pay grade” and some weren’t going to be on anyone’s next test, but I think there’s value in giving everyone at least a passing familiarity with all of them, and everyone learned something along the way.

Perhaps the most important lesson was that kata (like karate, itself) is more like math than history. The kata are learned in this order for a reason. You spend three katas learning how to pivot 270° before stepping into front stance so that, by the time you make it to Heian Sandan, you’re ready to pivot 270° before stepping into kiba-dachi, etc. Likewise, you learn how to pivot out of kosa-dachi in Heian Yondan so that you can apply that same footwork with much more difficult upper body techniques at the end of Heian Godan.

The last half of the class was a very specific instance of this same lesson. We took the hammerfist strike from Heian Shodan and applied it as an unbalancing technique. Then we took that same application and applied it to the first move of Tekki Shodan. Different kata … different stance … different approach angle … but with a similar result and position that makes it much more difficult for the attacker to counter.

2025-04-09

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

Last night’s class was largely reminicent of Monday’s. After 30 minutes of kihon we spent most of the remaining time going over the same wrist-grab escape/takedown from Heian Shodan and Tekki Shodan. Students needed more practice. After all, learning to swing a bat is one thing, but learning to hit a ball is another. By the end of class we’d done plenty of repetitions, with different partners, and spent some time discussing the advantages of different stances, differnt elbow positions, etc.

We also spent some time talking about wasted effort. One example of this is stomping the floor while executing technique. For example, stomping the floor at the end of oi-zuki means spending energy to direct your foot into the floor when that energy would be better spent directing your punch into the target. Said differently, you’re moving mass downward when it should be moving forward. Likewise, excessive noise while breathing wastes energy. Breathing noise is caused by friction that can’t help but reduce air flow.

I explain this by comparing it to an incandescent lightbulb. Yes, they produce light, but they also waste so much energy creating heat that someone came up with the Easy Bake Oven. We want our karate to be more like an LED bulb. Yes, there’s always going to be some inefficiency, but most of our energy should go towards our primary goal, rather than trying to come up with uses for the waste byproducts.

2025-04-12

Traning at the American Shotokan Karate spring clinic in Mapleton, IL.

This weekend I traveled back to Illinois to train with my “homies” at the American Shotokan Karate spring clinic in Mapleton, IL, hosted by the Central Illinois Shotokan Karate clubs of the Pekin/Peoria area. There were four training sessions, each taught by a different senior instructor, followed by a dan grading. It was good to see everyone again, and good to get in some hard training. Those sessions, and what we learned, have already been covered by others, so enjoy:

2025-04-14

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

I had a student ask me if I had a copy of the kihon combinations I had them perform during class, and I directed him to the rank requirements document I keep online.

Since that document shows all of the requirements for each test, it shows not only what students should be working on now, but also where that’s going to lead in the future. For example, students are responsible for soto-uke when testing for 8th kyu, but then it gets incorporated into increasingly complex combinations until it’s finally part of a four-move series, like this:

Because karate is more like math than history those skills build on each other. That’s why it’s important to know how it starts, how it progresses, and what the goal looks like.

How the kihon requirements build on each other is fairly complex, and I’ll probably write a full blog post about it in the near future, but taking a look at it has led me to remove some redundancies in my requirements, which are already reflected in the version linked above.

2025-04-16

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

I have several students working on Tekki Shodan, so we spent some time correcting one of my real pet peeves in all three Tekki kata - poor understanding of the “signature move” - the two-handed combination that involves an upper level block and culminates with a backfist to the attacker’s face. The backfist is rarely a problem, but the block often is.

I’ve queued up a full post about this as well, but here’s the TL;DR version:

1. You’re supposed to be blocking with the back of the arm (haiwan), so the blocking arm must be oriented “palm in.”
2. It must block something. (If your arm never passes in front of your face, you’re not blocking anything.)

See below:

All too often I see the blocking arm oriented like a rising block, with the palm out. Likewise, although the blocking arm ends up to the side of the head, it can’t spend all of its time over there or it can’t actually block anything. Consider that you’re blocking a punch coming directly at your face. In order to intercept that punch, the block must cross in front of your face, just as a rising block does.

2025-04-21

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

We’ve got a small rank exam schedule for Wednesday, but tonight was just like any other class. We spent the first half hour or so on kihon, though I differentiated the drills for different ranks. The next 40 minutes or so was dedicated to kata. We went through everyone’s kata at least once and those who weren’t responsible for, or couldn’t get through, whichever one we were working on simply retired to the back of the room to work on kata they did know. All together we worked on Taikyoku Shodan, Heian Nidan, Heian Yondan, Tekki Shodan, Bassai Dai, and Jion. Everyone got some homework. 😈

We even spent some time on bunkai, with the most time being spent on the gedan-uke/shuto-uchi combination at move #11 in Heian Yondan. I often remark that “karate people” are fully capable of making a kata look good, but then when you put a human in front of them and ask them to do exactly the same thing, they lose their minds. Tonight was no different. 🤣

The best part is that, after showing the application several times, and showing how what they’re doing is different from what I’m asking them to do, someone invariably says something like, “Oh, so we should do it just like the kata?” YES!

2025-04-23

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

We had a small kyu grading for a few students tonight: One in the youth class and three in the adult class. I’d say things went pretty well, but as usual I don’t hand out results until I’ve had time to prepare written feedback for each examinee. What I wouild like to discuss is what I do with the remaining class time after the exam is done.

I ask the examinees if there was anything on their test they thought they needed to do better because, I assure you, that’s pretty much the only thing on their mind at this point. Then I walk the whole class, regardless of rank, through those things, discussing not just how to do those things, but also how the examiner(s) judge them. Then, after I’ve given all examinees a chance to ask questions, I open it up to the rest of the class and ask the same thing. They’re all going to be taking these tests one day, so if they have questions about what they’re seeing, I want them to have every opportunity to ask, even if they won’t be taking that particular test for years.