Do your kata as if it is a real fight – 10/6/08 – Monday Karate class.

Sensei Brien started us with a little extended warm up.  After the normal movements and static stretches, he had us work on some dynamic movements.

We walked back and forth across the gym swinging one leg up and touching our fingers extended out in front of us.  We then held our hands about chest level and brought our knees up to our palms that were facing down.

Hard and then harder stances…

Next, Sensei Brien had us get into a horse stance (kiba dachi) and we did front punches and sanbon zuki’s.  After that, we got into a shiko dachi and did the same front punches and (triple punches) sanbon zuki’s.  Being in shiko dachi makes kiba dachi feel like a cakewalk.

Intense kihon…

We worked on some of the standard kihon moves with various punches moving forward and back and then combinations.  We also worked on our back stances and knife hand blocks.

• Front punch moving forward and back, along with Sanbon zuki.
• Rising block reverse punch, inward block reverse punch.
• Front snap kick moving forward and back.
• Roundhouse kick forward, slow and then for multiple counts.
• Back stance knife hand block, also with front snap kick and nukite.

One of the major points that Sensei Brien made was for us to make sure that our feet keep up with our hands.  In other words, if we did a punch moving forward or back, as our front foot lands, our punch should finish.

Side thrust kicks with a partner…

Next, Sensei had us get a partner.  One of us stood in a horse stance and the other had to do slow side thrust kicks over their hands held about belt level.  side thrust kick with partner in horse stance

Kata…

We then worked on Heian Sandan and Bassai Dai.  Sensei Brien wants us to do our kata with the feeling that we are in a real fight.  He felt that some of us were doing our blocks with little or no power and wants us to make sure that our blocks actually block an attack if they need to do so.