Archives for September 2009

Sensei Cieplik had us work on a lot of kicking drills today and he gave me a tip to help fix my side thrust kick and side snap kick that I never thought of.

Lots of kicking….

After the normal warm up, Sensei had us work on our kicks.  We started with rear leg front snap kick.  Next we moved to front leg toe tag with rear leg front snap kick.

If seemed that Sensei was a little troubled with our kicks so the next movement was knee strike with front snap kick.  The key is to push this hips forward for the knee strike, bring the hips back and then push them forward again for the front snap kick.

Next, we got into a horse stance and worked on moving sideways with side snap kick.  After that we worked on moving sideways side thrust kick and then side front snap kick.

Get a partner and revelation for me…

With our partner, we stood next to each other and one of us held on to the others shoulder.  From there, we brought our knee up for a side thrust kick and our partner took our leg through the motion.  This is where the revelation comes in.  Sensei came over to help me out and I was kicking very low and doing what looked like a back kick.

He told me to open my hips up first, which meant for me to turn my knee out to the side and then throw the kick instead of starting the kick from directly in front of me.  If I start the kick from in front, I end up doing what looks like an ugly back kick but if I point my knee to side before extending my leg, it goes almost straight out to the side and much higher than before.   For the first time in over five years, I was able to do a side thrust kick that actually looked like a side thrust kick.

Another point that Sensei made was for me to use all six joints.  He meant, to use the ankle, knee and hips on both sides of my body to help me execute my kicks.  The combination of all the joints together gives me a much better chance of kicking correctly instead of trying to kick, lets say, with my stationary leg pointed straight ahead, instead of turning it out as I kick and using those joints to assist.

Kata…

We finished up class with kata.  Sensei made a point about posture while we are doing our kata.  If your posture is good, your kata looks so much better than if you do your kata hunched over.

It was a great class and a huge help to my kicks too.

Class today was one of the best I have had in some time.

Run a lap and do a kata, rinse and repeat…

This was really a great warm up.  Sensei Noia had us run a lap around the gym and then do Heian Shodan.  Then we ran another lap and did Heian Nidan and another, then Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan, Heian Godan, Tekki Shodan, Jion, Bassai Dai and another Bassai Dai or a black belt kata for those that know it all with a lap in between each kata.  Overall,  I ran nine laps and did nine katas.  The lap before each kata made my legs feel like jello.

One-step and kihon….

The next thing we did was one-step sparring with a partner.  We each did six attacks and block and counter.  The six attacks were jodan front punch, chudan front punch, chudan front snap kick, chudan side thrust kick, chudan roundhouse kick and chudan spinning back kick.  We did this at least six times in between our kihon drills.

We also did a lot of kihon drills with focus on blocks and punches.  We started with simple, slow movements doing rising, downward, inward and outward blocks and then increased the speed after five or so movements of each.  We were doing sets of 15 movements with five slow and the last 10 full speed.

We also worked on moving forward with front punch, and then combination movements like outward block, jab and reverse punch.  Sensei was very critical of our stances and made sure that we low after each movement.

This was just an awesome class for me.  That kata warm up really helps me get warmed up really well and makes me feel like I am working extra hard.  It was great and I hope that we have classes like this more often.