A New Year in Karate

The new year has begun, as has the new session at our Kyu rank karate club. As for the Instructors club, it just continues going as usual, with no new students.

Our first class at the Kyu club was on Saturday the 7th. It was a small class (about 20 people, when normally we have 30-40) but the first class is always very introductory anyway, since there's always at least one or two new people.

This time there were two new people - one adult male and another male who appeared to be around 11-12 years of age. (unrelated) The adult male thought I looked familiar but couldn't place where he might have seen me. At any rate, I'm hoping there are a few more new people at Tuesday's class, although I guess it doesn't really matter because we still have a few white belts left who started earlier than January.

We've certainly got a whack of yellow belts in our club now - testing in December promoted about 8 of them from white to yellow. It's been a long time since we've put much effort into working on Heian Nidan, it'll be nice to start getting into that after so much work on Heian Shodan.

And the best thing about karate being back in session is that our head instructor is back in "karate action" and back instructing. I definitely enjoyed the instruction from the assistant instructor and enjoyed the instruction opportunities I've been allowed over the last 4 months but it's really nice to see Sensei back, too. His style of teaching is quite different than most of the rest of us, and it's HIS style I want to emulate because I see how well it works in terms of helping people see the good that's already inside of them.

The last few months without Sensei there, the rest of us have been trying to reign three "overactive" kids in and we've implemented various changes in how the class runs in order to do that. I do believe the kids are improving, but I know that having Sensei there will quicken the process because he's got a way with kids. It's like we prepared the kids for the fact that they're not going to get away with fooling around, and now Sensei is there to back us up and also stroke the egos of the kids in just the right way that they respond positively and respectfully.

It's that ego stroking I've got to learn how to do. It's that ego stroking that is sorely missed in many of the clubs I visit. Most of the Sensei's just lecture and give instruction. Our Sensei brings individuals up and gives an individual specific attention that also teaches the rest of us something general about karate and physical errors.

Tonight is our next class, I'm looking forward to it. Nice to start to see my Sensei again on a regular basis. :)

Bunkai with white belts, Heian Shodan

Now that Bill and I have been working more regularly with the white belts, I find myself trying to think of different things to do than what has generally been taking up the white belt's time - that is, something more than just going through Heian Shodan as a group, splitting off those people who are having troubles with the turns and assigning them to purple or brown belt assistants to work with, and then going through Heian Shodan again with the rest of the group.

And again.

And again.

And, well, we have a few more minutes so let's do it again.

And hrm, well, how about... BASICS! Yah, we'll do yellow belt basics.

And again.

And again.

I was getting bored of this, nevermind some of the poor kids who take 9-18 months to get their yellow belt because of their attention spans or motor skills already!

So, this most recent class when I was in charge of the kids, I split them into 3 groups of three, had two assistants help me by taking two of the groups while I took the third, and we went through bunkai (application) for Heian Shodan.

Of course, there are many different ways one could teach bunkai for any kata at all, so I'm not saying my way was THE way, and I really wasn't even concerned whether the assistants were teaching anything that looked consistent to what I was doing. The point was just to do something different with the only things we really can work with the white belts with, and have it be educational and interesting.

I didn't get a chance to talk to many of the white belts about whether they enjoyed it or got anything out of it, but I know two of the three kids in my group loved it for sure. The third kid... I'm not sure if it's just that he's right at puberty and working with me is difficult for him for various reasons or not... but he doesn't seem "in" to it like the other two were. Ah well, a white belt doesn't need to be intense, and he'll stay if he wants to.

It all worked out just great, and I think if we do it a couple more times maybe we can find some white belts who click together who could do a little demonstration in front of the class or maybe even at a Christmas karate demonstration or a tournament itself. Maybe.

We'll see!