More kata and self defense drills – 7/29/08 – Tuesday Karate class

Super warm up…

We started with suicides to each quarter distance line and back.  Next came butt kickers across the dojo.  Next, shuffle up and kick back and forth.  After that, we started slowly moving across the dojo with our knees up with arms up, almost skipping and then Sensei Noia would say “go” and we had to sprint to the far end of the dojo.  Next came low walks front and back.  Finally, moving back and forth across the dojo, we did a shuffle with a jab, shuffle with reverse punch, shuffle with front kick, and shuffle with jumping front kick.

My body was pretty much spent by the end of the warm up.

Different kata…

We did Heian Shodan the normal way.  Next we did it from end to to start.  We then did it from the start but we pivoted on opposite foot.  Instead of stepping to the left with the left foot forward, we stepped back with the right foot.  The idea was to pivot on the foot that we would normally move and step with the foot that is normally stationary.   Doing kata like this isn’t physically harder but mentaly it is extremely hard.

Kihon with a little twist…

From the ready stance, Sensei Noia had us step back with the left leg and jab, then go back to ready and step back with the right leg and jab.  Next came ready stance, step back into horse stance and do a palm strike.  He followed that with the same leg movement into a horse stance but with a backfist.  We finished those type of movements with step back into back stance and throw a knife hand block.

Self defense – based on the kihon with a twist above…

Sensei Noia had us partner up and do one-step sparring based on the movements that we were doing above.  If my partner threw a jodan front punch, I would step back, out of the way on the inside and throw a jab.

We did the similar movements with the horse stance with palm strike and backfist.  The idea with these movements was to just move enough to get out of the way of their punch and counter almost at the same time.

With the back stance, we used our drawhand to deflect the attack and then knife hand strike them in the neck.

Doing these simple movements shows that you do not need to move a lot to get out of the way of an attack and counter.