Some of the kids from first class along with our visitors from South Florida on August 13th, 2005. Thanks to everyone for making the trip.

I often find the classes I dread the most turn out to be the best. Perhaps I've had a bad day, and would like nothing more than to take the day off. Lately, I've been at the computer too much, (ah, the travesty of having a real job, too), and don't want to stress my joints too much. Almost invariably, I find the class to be good. My joints put themselves back in the right places. Class goes smoothly, or it will even be a breakthrough.

I've always been a kata-type of karateka. Kata comes first, and kata comes last. No matter where I am, I can do kata, even if I can't move, I can still do kata. But sparring brings people to the dojo. There's something visceral about the fight, even if sparring only exercises certain aspects of the fighting instinct which we try to cultivate through karate. Also, sparring is easy. Block. Punch. Kick. There's you, and there's a very concrete bad guy. (Despite this, my hands end up getting assulted alot more than the target areas..) Kata is hard. It's abstract. Where are you supposed to hit? Who? Why? Unlocking this puzzle is a large part of what kata is for, but enjoying that kind of challenge seems to be an acquired taste for most. I've been working alot with my students on form. I don't push, because most of my students are kids, but I do try to come up with games and tools to bring that zenkutsu dachi into alignment; to make that gaze stay on the imaginary opponent. (The kids do love the theatrics of imaginary opponents). So I've decided shift to being more of a sparring dojo. We'll see where it takes the students, and where it takes me. To begin with, I am going to ramp up to sparring in each class, and see how this effects the form and function of my students' technique. Is this a cop-out? No, kata is still central for me, and it won't go away in class no matter what happens. Call this an experiment, for which the experimental out come is stronger kata, and always, stronger students.

Kata can be difficult to get kids into. I used the recent Halloween to get the class thinking about being in character. This worked pretty well and you could actually see them looking at their imaginary attackers, though of course they were a bit silly at times. We went from this into bunkai. The group was sufficient to do a "three attacker" scenario. The silliness reached a new level here at times, but I think it solidified the imaginary concept. We'll see next week...