It is late for my ten minute write. Twice today I meditated: seven minutes in the morning since I was running late, and once tonight for ten.
B and I helped lead part of kihon. Rather, Sensei asked me to help lead class, and I drafted F and S to setup and start, since I’m not actually off work until 7 pm, and our business unit are sticklers. F begged off, saying she didn’t feel well. S set us up with Zoom but hit technical difficulties. SL, a very sharp junior shodan my S’s age, led the warm-up by the time I was able to join. We had a minimum amount of time on-line before completely losing our connection. I called in on my phone, though leading a Zoom class over a smart phone is not ideal. While on the cell, my husband D assisted S in getting our laptop dialed back into Zoom. We were able to lead kihon kicks.
Luckily, Senpai T, a Shodan, along with his wife TF, also an ichi kyu, were also on the Zoom. They taught Pinan Sono Yon. At one point, I was able to watch the class 0n the laptop and suggest a couple items for them to cover, based on what I saw students struggle with. At one point, Senpai T controlled the Zoom camera while Senpai TF instructed. That way, we were able see the kata moves more clearly.
Senpai also had a couple high rank students lead the kata, and then asked a couple of the lower rank students to lead the kata. Having lower rank students lead the kata was helpful for two reasons: first, they go at a slower pace, which helps others learning the kata keep the pace, and second, they show the higher rank where the lower rank students need help.
Overall, they did a good job of teaching the kata. In the future, however, we may want to queue up a video of whatever kata we want to cover, and actually play that over Zoom. I’ll suggest this.
At the end of class, the sound on our computer conked out. S and I put in the general Zoom chat that we didn’t have sound, though we still had video. SL, who had begun the class, ended it with a standing meditation.
I was so glad that Senpais T, TF and SL were there to help. We also had another junior shodan, G, as co-host, who helped “pin” students leading kata, admit us when we lost connections, etc. She helped a good deal, too.
