2025-09-15

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

I had six, yes six, new students tonight - one in the youth class and a family of five in the adult class.

That’s awesome for my program, but understandibly challenging for existing students who have to go back to “this is how you make a fist” and “this is how you take a step” instead of working on “their” stuff.

But …

The basics are “their stuff”, because karate isn’t just about you. Sometimes you’re learning new things and sometimes you need to spend time reinforcing old skills, which also serves to provide a good example to the “new guy” standing next to you. In other words, I don’t need the “old” people to learn how to take a step, I need them to use what they already know to demonstrate how to take a step, so the new people have good role models to copy.

Furthermore, advanced students may not need to hear how to do the basics anymore, but they should also be learning how to teach the basics. Karate dies without new instructors, so I want my students to hear what I teach, how I teach it, in what order I teach it, and different ways of teaching it when problems arise. We all know someone who’s really good at doing karate, but not so great at teaching it, so I put special value on teaching people how to teach.