Thursday Karate class – 1/10/08 – Kick the legs out when moving forward.

Sensei Cieplik showed us so many things in class, I am sure that I am not remembering everything.

We spent a good amount of time warming up with our normals kicking other movements.

After our warm up, Sensei had us work on moving forward with our hands on our hips. He told us to squeeze the floor and be sure to bring our knees in, to protect the groin area, when moving forward. He had us do something that we have worked on before but I never really understood it until tonight. When moving forward, he had us move into a cat stance and then kick our lower leg forward into a front stance. This gave an entirely different feeling to the movement. It also made the movement feel much faster and stronger than before. I really need to work in this at home. We then added the punch to this movement and the hand just came out, almost be itself. Doing the movement “with the body” or focusing on the leg movements made the punch fly out almost as if it was natural.

We then moved on to knee strikes and front snap kicks. Again, paying attention to squeezing the floor, the legs fly out with much more power and speed. Doing the knee strikes, while squeezing the floor almost makes the lower leg extension into a front snap almost automatic. Sensei also had us pay attention to when we come done from the kicks. We would kick, come down almost into a cat stance an then kick our leg forward.

During class, Sensei talked about what I think were the five elements or things that body can do.  Moving up, down, body rotation, body shock and body vibration.

We then worked on some partner drills.  For the first drill, Sensei had us stand in a knee to knee front stance with our partner.  Our partners knee was on the inside and ours was on the outside.  Our partner would push their knee outward against ours and we would throw a slow reverse punch at their abdomen, and if we applied the proper pressure with our legs, we would push them back.  If the punching person did not apply the correct pressure or squeeze with the legs, there was no way to move our partner.  Sensei said to make the hips look at each other.  He also said, when squeezing the floor, try to pull the front leg back and pull the back leg forward while gripping the floor with our feet to get the correct pressure.  Making the hips look at each other is something really helped me visualize what my legs should be doing when I squeeze.

We then did a similar drill where we would get into a front stance and our partner would apply a light pressure to leg by pulling our knee to the outside.  This forced us to squeeze but it also made us kick directly to the center.  There was a much different feeling, the kicks were much faster, stronger and dead center.

It was another excellent class and I am sure what I learned tonight will go a long way in help improve both my stances and the way I move.