2026-06-08

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

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last diary entry, and that’s 100% on me. Work has been busy and I had another trip back to Illinois, but those are just excuses. I try to treat these diary entries like karate practice … I do it … no matter what. But, there are things that make me miss practice sometimes, so I suppose it’s only fair that some things would make me miss my publication goals as well. All we can do is try to be better.

The last couple of weeks has been working up to the kyu grading we’re planning to hold this coming Wednesday. I have six eligible students, two of whom will be out of town, and the other four all plan to take the exam. We spent a good deal of time on escapes from grabs taught to us by kata, particularly Taikyoku Shodan, Heian Shodan, Tekki Shodan, and Tekki Nidan. I teach multiple techniques against the same attack for a couple of reasons: First, because it’s good to have options. Sometimes your “go-to” technique for a given application just isn’t going to work, and you need to have a “plan B.” Second, because the kata are the textbooks of our principles, but teaching the kata without applications is sort of like reading scripture in a language no one in the audience understands … they can copy it, but they can never really understand it.

Speaking of variety, I’d like to remind everyone of our upcoming seminar and black belt testing event on June 20. It’s be a great opportunity to hear fresh perspectives on things from other instructors. The principles are likely to be the same, but sometimes the presentation makes the difference in whether or not you understand. I’ll look forward to seeing you all there.