I had the pleasure of teaching classes last Thursday and Monday nights. I chose to stick with a theme for both nights, and that them was legs. We did lots of basics, as well as, partner drills, but all of them were done in deep stances: kibadachi, shikodachi, and zenkutsudachi. I concentrated a lot on shikodachi and kibadachi since most of our students really struggle with the concept of kibadachi and often end up in shikodachi very quickly; which is especially bad when doing the naihanchi kata.

Monday night, I also chose to challenge everyone mentally, as well as, physically. For the black belts, the challenge was in stringing techniques that we usually don't do together together; and also throwing in techniques that we just plain do not do in this dojo. For the lower ranks, the mental challenge was doing different techniques with counts that were not the same as the black belts; that is, they might be doing a simple downward block while the black belts were doing multi-count techniques right next to them.

I really enjoyed the classes, and I hope everyone else learned something and enjoyed them as well.