Friday Karate class – 1/25/08 – Sparring with the angles.

Class was hard physically but ever harder mentally.

Sensei Noia broke us up into groups.  He took the black belts and Sensei Gatch took everyone else below black belt.  We put on our pads and started working on sparring drills.

Instead of doing the normal back and forth, shift in and out type drills, Sensei Gatch had us work on angles.  We started with our partner in one place and we shifted, around then in a circle.  In order to circle them, we had to shift in and then shift out on an angle.  Shifting to the right was no too hard but when shifting out to the left angle, it was a different story.  It was hard not to get my feet tangled up but after a while, it did get somewhat easier to perform.

The concept behind shifting on the angles were to find an opening to attack our opponent.  We started doing that same movement as above but both of us were shifting at the same time.  While doing, Sensei had one of us change direction when shifting out.  By changing direction, it created an opening on our partner for attack.  It took some time to get the concept down since we are always used to working on linear or straight lines when sparring.  Or, at least I am used to doing it that way.

It was a good class but hard to do the correct way.