Archives for August 2009

After five years, I believed that the hardest classes were behind me.  I thought that since I was this far along I could take any type of punishment after some of the classes that I had in the past.  We can throw that idea out the window.  Sensei Noia gave us one of the hardest, if not the hardest, classes that I remember ever having.

Not for the weak hearted….

We started with the usual warm up by jogging back and forth across the gym eight times.  After that, we did low walks but with a little twist.  We did low walks to the quarter line then 10 squats and back to the start, next we went to the half line and did 10 more squats and back, then we went to the three quarter line and did 10 more squats and back and finally, we went to the end of the gym and did, you guessed it, no, 20 squat this time and back to the start.  My legs were calling me some really nasty names at this point.

For a rest, we all spread out and did a very slow kata of our choice.  I did Heian Shodan since I always like to warm up with that kata whenever I have a choice.

Next, we were supposed to do bear crawls to the quarter, half, three quarter, end and back but I ended up doing low walks again since my coordination for bear crawls is not the best.  Instead of doing squats at each distance, we did 10 push ups at each quarter line and 20 at the end.

For another rest, we did another kata.  This time I picked Heian Yondan since I always like doing this kata.

Low walk kata….

For the rest of the class, we did low walks to each line again but this time we did a kata and then jogged back to the start line.  I did Heian Nidan first, Heian Sandan second, Tekki Shodan third and Bassai Dai at the end.

I think there might have been a couple more katas somewhere in the mix but I might have blacked out or am just trying to block it from my mind.  The moral of this story is, just when you think you have had the hardest training day ever, your Sensei might just prove you wrong.

Sensei Brien had us work on sparring basics today.

Block and counter….

We spent much of the class working on basic block and counter drills.  Our partner would shift in, reverse punch and then shift out.  As they threw reverse punch and started shifting out we would throw a roundhouse kick.

We also worked on the same type of drill but the attacker was allowed to throw another attack after the roundhouse kick counter and then we were able to throw a reverse punch after the roundhouse kick.

The idea was to continue throwing attacks and counters until someone scores.   Sensei also made that point that throwing that counter attack even after getting hit by an opponent could mean a point in a sparring match for you and not your opponent if it is better than theirs.  There is a chance that even though they hit you, the referee might not have seen it or it might not have met the needed criteria for a point in a  sparring match.

We didn’t do a lot of different drills today but this was a great refresher.

This was a really good class and different than any other that I remember.

Seiza…

Sensei Noia had us get into seiza and from that point we did a jodan front snap kick while staying on one knee.  Next, we fell to our side, like in Unsu, and did a side thrust kick.  After that, we did the same move, from Unsu, and did a roundhouse kick from that position.  Between each movement, we had to get back into the starting seiza position.  We finished up this drill with reverse punch, on one knee, from seiza.

Do your kata….

Next, we spent some time with working on kata.  Sensei Noia said we could do any kata we wanted but he wanted us to give a full 100% speed and power.  After sitting in seiza for about a half hour, my legs and knees weren’t working too well but I was able to do what felt like a good Bassai Dai.

Pressure points….

We finished up class working on a little pressure point drill.  Sensei had us get a parnter and hit them with a hammer fist on top of the forearm about an inch or so from the elblow bend.  Not a lot of power is needed to make someones head move downward at a hight rate of speed when using this pressure point.  Sensei Noia was kind enough to come over and show my wife how easy it is to make me drop like a rock when he hit that pressure point on my arm.