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. 🤷