Saturday Karate class – 3/8/08 – One step sparring and kata.

It has been some time since we worked on one-step sparring and I was glad that Sensei Plocharczyk choose that for our class today.

We started class with a horse stance and punches and kicks while hold it.  He had each person count to 10 and we did punches and blocks until we went through the entire class of people.  There had to be at least 25 people in class so we ended up holding that stance for a long time.

Next, we paired up and  spent a good amount of time doing just one-step.  For the first attack, jodan, Sensei had us do a back stance, knife hand block with roundhouse kick and reverse punch counter attack.  For the second attack, chudan, we did a pivot on the back leg with an inward block with reverse punch.  Blocking the front snap kick, we did downward block with reverse punch counter.  For the side thrust kick, we did a back leg pivot with a low block and then followed it up with the reverse punch.  It was different than the normal one-step drills that I am used to but it felt easy for some reason.  I used to have a hard time shifting out of the way but today, I didn’t have any problems with timing or distance.  I hope it stays that way.

We then spent the rest of the class working on kata.  Sensei had us break up into to groups by rank.  He then assigned a Sensei to each group and had us do kata.  After the kata, that Sensei would give us something to work on.  After each kata, a different Sensei would watch us and give us something to work on.  After my first kata, I was told to watch my right arm draw hand since it was a little loose.  The next Sensei said to watch how my toes are pointing when doing the back stance with double block.  The next two Sensei’s said that my kata was good but I think they were just being kind.

It was a really good class.