Ouch!
Hard class again.
We started wtih a hard warm up. I was sweating like mad within the first five minutes of the warm up and it didn’t get any easier as class went on. One of the best parts about taking the advanced classes are that we get a serious conditioning workout along with advanced moves that aren’t normally done in the lower rank classes.
We spent much of the class working on moving our legs very quickly. For example, starting from the ready stance in Heian Shodan, we had to move in to the downward block very fast. After five or six tries, our Sensei felt that we were moving fast enough. I always gauge myself by trying to move fast than the black belts around me and I was either keeping up or moving faster than the ones I was able to watch while still concentrating on my moves. We did all of Heian Shodan, doing all the movements with high speed but it was interesting when moving from facing left with a front punch and then turning to the opposite side with say a downward block. That movement is long and requires the foot to travel a long way but our Sensei had us bring out feet together and then push them out quickly. It made the move much more simple but doing fast and smooth was somewhat hard for me. I did get better at it but I am certainly not breaking any speed records.
After many many drills, we worked on some group kata. Doing some of the Heian katas, then Tekki Shodan and finishing up with some Jion. I like the look of Jion. For someone my size, Jion is a really cool kata. It just feels like a kata made for strong people. The front snap kick with the three punches feels very powerful and the rising block, move forward with front punch feels like a steam roller.
We finished up with some of our own kata. I must have done Tekki Shodan at least 500 times over the last six months but I made a mistake in class. I started doing the moves for the first half of the kata over again when I should have been doing the second half.
Either way, class was really good but my hips kept waking me up during the night after that class.
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