2025-09-17

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

I got a request tonight. One of the students asked if we could learn at least one application from each kata we practiced. You don’t have to ask me twice! Granted, that means kata is going to take a lot longer, because you can’t just do the kata, give a little critique, and move on. Now we’ve got to stop, line up with partners, listen to me explain and demonstrate an application, and then give everyone time for at least five repititions, before moving on. Still, it was great fun (for me anyway). Here’s what we did:

• Taikyoku Shodan: We used the initial “downward block” as a cross-side wrist grab escape.
• Heian Shodan: We used the rising block at the first kiai as an entry to an around-the-neck hip throw (koshi guruma). Then we used the punch at the second kiai as an entry to an around-the-waist hip throw (uki goshi).

Image attribution: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Koshi-guruma.jpg