Kick up the stairs – 2/4/10 – Thursday Karate class

This class was a little different for me than most.  Sensei Cieplik had me start class in the stairwell.

Kick up those stairs…

In order to improve my front snap kicks, that I seem to have been doing wrong for a long time now, Sensei had my go out to the stairwell.  From there, Sensei had me step up one, two then three stairs.  By stepping up three stairs, Sensei was able to see that I could raise my knee up almost to chest level.   Sensei then had me get into a front stance at the bottom of the stairs and do a front snap kick.  By starting with a motion as if I was walking up the stairs, I was able to kick correctly.  Sensei gave this to me as my homework.

Kihon….

For our basics, Sensei had us work on our various block punch combinations.  We did knee strike with front snap kick.  Next, we did moving forward and back with rising, downward, inward and outward blocks and reverse punch.  We also worked on front snap kick with front punch.

Kata, all the way up….

We finished class doing kata.  We started with Heian Shodan all the way to Bassai Dai.  I did what felt like the most awful Tekki Shodan of my life but that’s another story.  One thing that Sensei suggested is that I do Jion with a stick in my belt on my back.  If I learn forward or button pull, the stick will hit me in the back of the head.

It was good class and luckily for me, I have stairs at home so I can do my homework and kick up those stairs.