2025-05-05
Teaching my regular classes at the Ross Farnsworth - East Valley YMCA.
Tonight’s adult class worked on what I’m going to call “percussive” kicking drills. Students find a partner and form two lines. The attacking side begins with left foot forward while the receiving side begins with right foot forward and, for the front-kick version, with hips square. The attacking side then steps forward, landing a mae-geri keage just above the recieving side’s belt. Then, and only then, the receiving side steps back to give the attacker proper distance to continue with another kick, etc. This drill teaches a few important lessons.
- The attacker is practicing appropriate distance and contact. We’re not kicking hard; we’re just letting our partner know we’re there. 😈
- The defender is practicing trust and getting comfortable accepting some contact to the body.
Next we do the same thing with mawashi-geri. This time, the defenders turn their hips to the side to give the attacker a better target. Otherwise, the drill is the same.
After that we move on to yoko-geri kekomi with the defender’s hips square again. You can do this with yoko-geri keage, but the receivers should hold their hands out in front of them to provide a target that the attacker’s can kick up into. (Think like the yoi position of Tekki Shodan only with the hands held out front instead of straight down.)
Finally, if they’re up to it, you can do this with turning ushiro-geri, though we opted to do this from a static position with the defender offering a hand to help the attacker keep balance. (We’ll get there, though.)
