Sensei Gatch had us spend the entire class working on Kihon and Kata.
I always enjoy classes like these and today was no exception. We started with some simple combinations. Moving forward and backward doing downward block with reverse punch, rising block with reverse punch and inward block with reverse punch.
Sensei Gatch spent a good amount of time explaining hip rotation and how important it is for our upcoming examination. We then did a drill where we stood with our body facing to the right and then stepped out to the left and threw a reverse punch. Sensei then had us put more weight on our back leg and drive off it. Again, the idea was to get a lot of hip rotation and it worked. My hips were screaming.
Next, we worked on back stance with knife hand block. The time that I spent working on back stances in my Thursday class really helped today. Moving both forward and back felt almost effortless. Sensei also explained that our knife hand block should be as strong as our reverse punch. He said that our punches are strong but our knife hand block were much less powerful.
We then moved into kata. We started with Heian Shodan and then we did our own belt rank kata. One of our assistant Sensei’s gave me some really good advice. When doing Jion, the move where I go from the right hand middle block into the outward block followed by the step with front punch, I am using my shoulders, throwing my back leg (straight) around instead of drawing it in and bringing my knees together. I realized that if I do that movement like I when going from the rising block (move 9) into the downward block (move 10) in Heian Shodan, the move is much smoother.
It was a good class and I have a few things to work on outside of class too.
The Somax Power Hip Trainer will really help with your hip rotation. Wish I had it when I was in Shodokan.