9/11/07 – Tuesday Karate class.

Some classes are really hard and some are just plain old torture.

I knew that class was going to be a tough one when we started class with horse stances.   We did just about every move, outward block, inward block, rising block, front punch, double front punch, and triple punch, all from a horse stance.  We did sets of 10 and no rest in between movements.  At one point, I think we did 120 moves without a break.  We also did, from a horse stance of course, front snap kick, come back down in to a horse stance and throw a front punch then switch legs and repeat.

Then we did, you guessed it, more horse stance work. Not only did we do even more movements, we had to hold the stances while being timed.  It was unreal and at one point, I had to close my eyes and try to put my mind in a different place because my legs were burning.  I do have to admit, since I have been seeing my chiropractor, I can hold my horse stances much lower and wider.

To finish up class, we worked on kata.  We started with a couple of Heian Shodan’s and then, Sensei had us do all of the kata in sequence starting with Heian Shodan all the way up to our current belt kata.  At that point, I was totally spent and I had a hard time even putting my shoes on but I am sure that the next time we do a class like that, it will be a little easier.