Teaching Nage no Kata

I was thinking of writing a blog about forward shaping and backward shaping because they are very important to teaching. However, to paraphrase one of the items on Skippy’s List, I just recently had an experience I just have to write you about (#83)…

I require the first three sets of the Nage no Kata for all of my students that want to be sankyu. Unfortunately, I don’t have too many people nearing that fateful milestone so the opportunities for those few (2) to have an opportunity to really get my full attention towards kata are limited. Tonight was different, but only one of the two was there.

Tonight my student who will be looking at sankyu (R.) in April or May and my MMA competitor (E.) were the only students I had. So I decided that they both needed certain specific work. As it turns out the yonkyu got the most time, and that on Nage no Kata. His partner for this is a “beginner” who is looking at a skip promotion to, what I class, as shichikyu (orange belt for us).

Obviously, a beginner should probably not be doing kata at speed. So we started by breaking down the kata into its component elements. The first thing, actually the last (so this qualifies as backward shaping) is the ukemi for Uki otoshi, a basic shoulder roll. E. got comfortable doing these shoulder rolls from a three step movement, just like the kata requires. Eventually we progressed to face to face moving through Uki otoshi without grips to make sure R. and E. could move in concert and perform the action without hurting each other.

The second to last step was the laying on of hands. I had them both set their hands in the appropriate positions to get their hands working accordingly. Several run-throughs of this and they were ready to actually grip. This worked beautifully! E. had never done this throw before. While he certainly will win no awards at a kata competition any time soon, for a first time it was excellent. R. who had done this many times before but very poorly actually began to understand the basic physics of the waza!

On to Seoi nage and much the same process occurred. You have no idea how interesting it is to watch someone do a leaping shoulder roll fall over a stationary partner to get the action of the fall correct! And it worked well. Well, except for the left side; this was just awful. But they worked solidly on it. With only one blemish to the exceptional record for the night, we just moved on.

Kata guruma, the bane of my kata existence, seemed to be working for me, but not R. It finally dawned on me why he was in the wrong position and a solution! It saddens me to say that I have to use Duck Tape to keep my mats together, however, that dull silver tape helped R. align his feet correctly! After only a few tries he finally lifted E. pretty correctly!

Things came together tonight and I’m fairly happy with the work these two are putting in at the club.