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.