2025-06-09

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

Tonight’s adult class took the next step in the evolution of the single-attack drills we’ve been working on for the past few weeks. As a recap, we’ve been working on jiyu-ippon kumite against a fixed set of eight attacks: oi-zuki jodan, oi-zuki chudan, kizami-zuki jodan, gyaku-zuki chudan, mae-geri keage chudan, yoko-geri kekomi chudan, mawashi-geri chudan, and ushiro-geri chudan.

We began by having everyone string all eight attacks together and, to encourage vocabulary, I asked them to say the name of each technique as they did it. So everyone went across the floor performing all eight attacks, one at a time. Once everyone was moderately comfortable with that, I had them split into pairs. One partner wouild then drive the other partner backward across the floor with all eight techniques, one at a time. Meanwhile, the other partner would evade and respond with a counterattack each time, before getting back into position for the next attack.

Slowly but surely we’re approaching jiyu kumite.