2025-07-09

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

Tonight was another well-attended adult class. When you’ve got a class full of intermediate-to-advanced students, and one white belt, it can be challenging, which is why it’s so important to have a group of drills that can be “tweaked” to be appropriate for different skill levels.

For example, I can have lower rank step forward with soto-uke, while mid-ranks follow with yoko empi uchi, and have advanced students add uraken and even gyaku-zuki, resulting in different ranks doing anywhere from one technique to a four technique combination, all sticking together in the same group. This is good for everyone as the beginning students can see what they’ll be doing later, and hear me coach them on it, while advanced students can hear how I coach beginners who are just struggling with the basic movements.