9/14/07 – Friday Karate class – more torture!

I thought that Tuesday class was torture, it was almost nothing next to todays class!

The goal was to torture our legs and make us hold our stances for what seemed like forever.

We started in a horse stance and punched 100 times. Next came a front stance and 50 punches on each leg. Next came more horse stances and punches for another 100. Then came a bunch of side thrust kick. Sensei had us hold the wall with one hand and throw a low, medium and high side thrust kick for at least 50 each leg. My hips actually started to cramp after the 20 plus kicks. After that, back in to the horse stance and 100 more punches.

My legs and shoulders were so tired that I could hardly pick my leg up or throw a punch with any power near the end of class. My mind was still trying but my body was not at that point.

We also did at least three or four sets of 30 crunches and a bunch of push ups. Doing the sit ups and push ups was a nice rest before moving on to the next set of torture. My mind is a little blurry but I think there were some squats somewhere in there for good measure.

I almost forgot, we finished up with two kata. I did Tekki Shodan for both of them but I could hardly raise my legs when stepping in to each move.

Even though it was extremely hard, I feel that classes like those will help prepare us for our upcoming rank exams and tournament.