Things we do not often do – 8/20/09 – Thursday Karate class

This was a fun class.  Sensei Cieplik had us do things that he said we don’t often do.

Mentally challenging….

We did the normal warm up with our kicks and then moved right into our kihon drills.

Sensei wanted us to work on things that we normally don’t do.

We started moving forward and back in a back stance with rising block.  Still in a back stance, we did inward block and then gedan shuto.  The movements themselves weren’t too hard but getting the mind to do them was.  It just goes to show how we get in a pattern of doing the same movements.

Next, we did front snap kick, then block with the same leg while turning 90 degrees and put the kicking leg behind us to move into a front stance.  Next, we did the same move but after putting our back leg down, we did a reverse punch.

For the next drill, we did a front snap kick but to three targets.  We kicked to the left rib area, right rib area and the center without putting the kicking leg down.  The idea was to not twist the hips to kick to the outside center targets.

Back snap kick….

Here was a move that I never remember seeing until today.  We started in a horse stance looking right, we then slide the front leg backward half way, then push the back leg behind into low front stance, with the leg straight and then snap our heel to our butt, much like how we snap our kick back after a front snap kick.   This kick is meant to be used on an attackers groin and I am sure it would be really effective.

We finished up doing a kata, the name of the kata escapes me, from another style of Karate.  It was a very flowing kata and a lot of fun.