2026-07-01

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

Last night’s class was small, but that’s not unusual for a Wednesday going into a holiday weekend. But one of the attendees was our recent shodan recipient, so we spent the evening working our way through some advanced kata.

Empi: We talked about footwork through the first four moves, which we perform all without stepping off our original horizontal line. Then we talked about what to do after the rising punch - are we grabbing and pulling or raking the eyes? We also spent time on the rising/falling palm heel blocks near the end, keeping each one in its own vertical column of space.

Jion: This is a big, powerful kata, but its power stems from the ability to transition between relaxation and tension. Arm position during the two southward runs, first with palm-heel strikes and next with dropping forearm blocks, is difficult for most people until they understand the application. Finally, we went through a few common variations of the last two moves - the “bow punches” at the end.

Tekki: To fill out a bit of remaining time, we went through Tekki Nidan and Tekki Sandan a couple of times, not really in the hope of having it “stick” but more just to build familiarity for later and to build some comfort performing a variety of techniques in kiba-dachi that should translate into better performance on Tekki Shodan.