2026-07-27

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

Let’s talk about posture for a moment … specifically during the side-snap kick/back-fist strike combination on the 7th count of Heian Nidan. Whether you believe the back-fist is a strike or a block doesn’t really matter. People disagree on that point, but they all agree that the fist should be oriented vertically. But what they seem to forget, or ignore, is that the arm delivering the back-fist needs to be traveling horizontally - parallel to the floor. Most people just assume it is.

But here’s the thing - people measure how “horizontal” the arm’s movement is not from the floor’s perspective, but from their own. So if their back isn’t perpendicular to the floor, that arm won’t be traveling parallel to it. Lean forward just a bit and two things happen: the arm starts to travel along an upward path and the fist orientation creeps closer and closer to a bottom-fist.

From the observer’s perspective, we see the arm angling upward and the fist turning out of position. We fixate on the symptoms, but not the cause. The arm movement isn’t the problem at all - your posture is.

Here’s a simple drill. Stand with your back lightly touching a wall and perform the back-fist movement without the kick. Then repeat it while bringing the kicking leg into its chambered position. The wall will tell you immediately when your torso begins to pitch forward. Once you can maintain that posture through the chamber, move a few inches away and add the kick. Don’t use the wall to hold yourself upright; use it to learn what upright actually feels like.

The point isn’t to train against the wall forever. It’s to replace an unreliable internal reference with an objective one until your perception catches up with your posture.