2026

2026-01-05

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

Our first class of 2026 had great attendance, and we’ve finally got enough students of sufficient rank to start a bit of genuine jiyu kumite. However, with that comes the necessity for additional safety. I’m asking everyone to purchase a mouth guard, and either purchase hand pads and head gear or use the shared gear I have on hand. I explain it like this:

• The hand pads are non-negotiable. They aren’t for you - they’re for the other person. They won’t keep you from getting bruises, but they should keep you from minor cuts if your blocks need work. (Also, for those wearing glasses, my personal rule is that the glasses come off when the gloves go on.)

• The head gear is mandatory for minors and strongly encouraged for adults. It won’t keep you from getting hurt if you walk face first into a roundhouse kick, but it will protect you from cracking your gourd on the floor if you get swept.

• The mouth guard is also mandatory for minors and strongly encouraged for adults. This one is a no-brainer. They cost less than $4 at Walmart and can save you a few thousand dollars in dental bills.

After reading all that, you may be thinking that this safety gear doesn’t sound like it protects you very much at all but, if so, you may need to change the way you think about kumite. The safety gear isn’t there to allow you to go at unreasonable, unsafe speeds. It’s there so you can go at a reasonable speed and still be protected when you (inevitably) make a mistake or two.

Think of it like the safety equipment in your car. The seatbelt and airbags shouldn’t encourage you to drive at dangerously unsafe speeds. If you hit a telephone pole at 100 mph, you’re probably still going to die. However, if you’re driving at reasonable speeds, they’ll do a very good job of protecting you when you have a fender-bender.

2026-01-07

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

When students begin free sparring, they tend to hold their hands like boxers - with their forearms pointing almost straight up. That’d be fine if we were boxing, but we’re not. When we stand in “guard” position, it’s best to have both fists pointing at the “bad guy” at all times. Think of it this way: If your arms are pointing up, then punching requires you to lower your arm until it points at the target before you punch - he’ll see that coming. It’s far better to simply have your arms pointing at the target in the first place.

I tell my students to pretend they have laser pointers strapped to their wrists and, unless they’re already punching or blocking, they need to keep the laser dot on the bad guy at all times. That way, there’s no need to “aim” because it’s already done. All they need to do is thrust their arm forward.

2026-01-12

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

Back in October of 2024, I wrote “Spirit first; technique second”, a look at the fifth principle of Funakoshi’s Niju Kun, and it came to mind again last night. I can (and do) teach my students the physical techniques of karate. It’s not easy, but it’s much easier than teaching them mental toughness and a never-give-up attitude.

After kumite drills last night, I mentioned this to my students, and asked them if they sensed a difference in intensity between partnering with a brown or black belt and partnering with anyone else. (They agreed that they did.)

If so, it’s because we senior students practice the mentality along with the physicality, because we know that how you practice is how you’ll perform. If your mental intensity and the ferocity of your kiai is enough to make your attacker reconsider before ever attacking, that’s not only good, that’s the goal. Nobody goes to the hospital and nobody goes to jail.

Thanks in advance to Sensei Barry O’Brien and Sensei Dave Bracklow for covering my classes while I’m on vacation for the next several weeks.

2026-02-12

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

This was my first class since returning from vacation. Thanks again to Sensei Barry O’Brien and Sensei Dave Bracklow for covering my classes while I was away.

I had a young man quit tonight … and that’s okay. In fact, everything about the encounter was good. I’d been warned that this young man was going to quit, but his father insisted that he come and tell me face-to-face. Good for you, dad! After all, if you come and talk to me, I have the opportunity to ask questions about why you’re quitting and whether there’s anything I could have done differently.

Apparently, he just wasn’t enjoying classes anymore, and that’s fine too. Sure, everyone can do karate, but that doesn’t mean it’s what everyone wants to do. Furthermore, even if you like karate, that’s not to say that there aren’t other things that you don’t like more, and there are only so many hours in a day.

I told this young man that he’s always welcome back and, if he’s ever just in the building doing something else, that he should stop by and say hi. No hard feelings. Why should there be? We shook hands and I started the next class.

2026-02-16

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

I ended up using my Michelangelo analogy in class again last night, so I’ll explain in here in the hope someone else may be able to use it in their own classes.

Michelangelo is probably best known for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but he was a sculptor by trade, and he once said, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

Karate training is the same process. The black belt is already there, inside you. All you need to do is chisel away the mistakes. Like a sculptor who begins by chiseling away large pieces of unnecessary material, the karate student begins by eliminating large mistakes … poor posture, poor stance, poor timing, etc.

As the sculptor progresses, he ends up removing smaller and smaller pieces of unnecessary marble, using finer and finer tools to do it. Likewise, with the big problems out of the way, the karate student turns to fixing smaller and smaller mistakes … lapses of focus, pelvic alignment, etc.

But here’s the thing: Sculptors are often never satisfied with their work, continuing to tinker with it even after most people would consider it “done.” And karate training is the same way. Good karate practitioners are never satisfied either, always learning more, fixing more, and trying to improve.

2026-02-18

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

Tonight’s sparring practice introduced some new drills I’d like to share. We started with everyone donning safety gear, then we found partners and made two lines. Rounds 1 through 3 proceed with the attacking side driving the defending side back across the dojo before switching roles and coming back to the starting point.

Round 1: The attacker moves forward to strike with any single technique. The defender moves back only after allowing the attacker to make contact. The defenders’ tendency is to move back in anticipation of being struck, but I wanted them to stand their ground, presenting a static target for the attacker and building a bit of mental fortitude.

Round 2: The attacker moves forward with a series of techniques. The defender may now move back before getting hit, but must touch each incoming technique. The defenders’ tendency here is to back up too far, block too aggressively, or reach to block attacks that weren’t a threat. This drill is about timing and maintaining distance.

Round 3: This is similar to round 2, but now the attacker focuses on providing a steady, rhythmic stream of techniques (like attacking with a metronome). The defender, at some point, has to disrupt the attacker’s timing and get in a counterattack.

Round 4: Identical to round three, but now attacker and defender switch roles immediately after the defender’s counterattack. This drill doesn’t go the length of the floor but instead changes direction frequently.

The lessons here include maintaining distance, being able to put hands on (though not necessarily block) every incoming attack, allowing an attacker to make contact without losing composure, disrupting an attacker’s rhythm and … finally … rapid context switching between defense and attack.

2026-02-23

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

Last night we talked about the additive nature of vectors and how they work together to produce power in karate technique. After all, there’s no magic in karate, it’s just physics and biomechanics. If you can throw a ball at 30 mph and run at 15 mph, then you can get the ball moving at 35 mph by throwing it while you’re running. Similarly, if you can punch at 30 mph and step forward at 5 mph, then you can get your punch moving at 35 mph by coordinating your punch with your step. The speed provided by both components of the motion is additive. Most students learn this within the first month of training.

Kicking follows the same principle, but with more additive components. The step is one, but the kick is composed of several others, not just one. When you kick, you use your hip flexors to move the knee up and forward. At the same time, you use your quads to extend your leg. But there should also slight “pendulum” action that moves the lower part of the pelvis forward. It’s not much, but every little bit helps, and this posterior pelvic tilt also allows a higher kick than if the pelvis were kept neutral.

2026-02-25

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

Averages are the devil. Beginners almost always want to split the difference. Their hips are supposed to be square when attacking, and turned back when blocking … but that’s hard, so they just “split the difference” and keep their hips somewhere between the two. Likewise, front stance is supposed to have about 70% of the weight on the front leg, both feet pointing forward, and hip width, while back stance is supposed to have about 70% of the weight on the back leg, the back foot at a right angle to the front, and no width … but that’s hard, so they just split the difference.

Splitting the difference is awful because it guarantees you’re wrong 100% of the time. If you just did front stance with your hips square all the time, at least you’d occasionally be right, but splitting the difference every time makes you wrong every time. That’s one of the beautiful things about karate … you have to care. You have to put in effort. You have to do it right.

2026-03-02

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

Pivoting on one foot requires balance and ankle strength. It’s difficult because you’re not just pivoting “on one foot”, you’re pivoting around a particular point on the bottom of the foot. Balance is easy with a wide base, like a front stance. Balance is harder in a narrow stance, harder still while standing on one foot, and very hard when your “base” is reduced to a single point. When pivoting on the ball of the foot, ankle strength (and, thereby, stability) also comes into play.

The biggest problem I see with pivoting on one foot is the failure to maintain a single axis of rotation. When pivoting on the heel, the person will lose balance, transfer weight to the ball of the foot, and then pivot from there. When pivoting on the ball of the foot, lack of ankle strength causes the person to let the heel fall, and then pivot from there. In both cases, they start the pivot on one point but then transfer the pivot to another point. In other words, instead of one long pivot, they do two (or more) shorter pivots, using different axes of rotation.

So how do you “fix” this? Balance is important for both heel and ball pivots, and while I could probably come up with a variety of pivot-oriented balance drills, we’re already blessed with dozens of kata that do that for us automatically. Just practice kata while concentrating on how, and how far, your feet pivot, instead of concentrating on all the cool punches kicks and blocks. The other factor in a ball pivot is ankle strength and, again, there’s no better training than kata. Practice your kata again, this time pivoting on the ball of your foot whenever possible (even if that’s not normally how you perform the kata). It’ll teach you a lot about balance and stability and greatly improve the pivots you normally execute on the ball of your foot.