2026-03-25

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

We talked a lot about the cooperative nature of karate training last night, particularly during partner drills. If, as the attacker, you don’t give it your all and make your attack convincing, the defender has no incentive to learn how to block correctly. In other words, the worse the attack is, the worse the block can get away with being and still get the job done. It’s only when there’s a sense of danger and urgency that you can really improve your self-defense skills. That’s not to say that slow technique doesn’t its place - it absolutely does, but partner attack/defense drills are not that place.

And it’s not just about speed, but targeting too. If your attack is off target, the defender doesn’t need to block it, so they don’t learn how. The worst “offender” for this is defense against a spinning back kick. Oftentimes attacker’s kicks are so off target, often because of poor flexibility, that the defender has nothing to block … but they want to block, so they compensate by leaning forward and reaching.

Aggression is tough to teach, but I do it by starting with standard one-time attack drills, using the eight basic attacks and defenses that I teach to all students. We do that again and again, rotating through partners, while I constantly berate them to “Go, go, go! Faster! Faster!” Then, once they think they’re going fast, I make an adjustment. I tell the attacker to skip the attacks to the head, but drill the defender in the chest with the rest. Then I tell the defender it’s their choice between bruises to the chest or on their blocking arms. 😈