8/21/07 – Tuesday Karate class.

We spent most of the class working on sparring drills again but this was a little different than most of our sparring classes.

We partnered up right away and started doing kicking drills. With our arms down at our sides, each of us would throw a front snap kick at our partner and then switch legs and do the same. The idea behind this drill was to help us with our balance.

Then we moved on to punching drills. I would throw a jab to jodan and then my partner would do that same, then to chudan and then gedan. The idea was to punch hard with control and also move in and out of the way after the attack.

We went back to some kicking drills where we would throw a rear leg roundhouse kick, then our partner would do the same, then a front leg shuffle up roundhouse kick. We then switched legs and did the same. I didn’t have too much trouble with my right leg kicks but my left leg is really far behind when it comes to height and power. We also worked on some other drills with some sweeps and kicks.

We finished up with a kata. Sensei Noia told us to pick any kata that we wanted to do and for some reason Heian Nidan was on my mind. I used my new breathing technique and it really made my kata very fast but I need to video tape myself to see if I am going too fast and to make sure that I still have good kime.