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.
