Archives for February 2010

We had a guest Sensei today in class.  Sensei Carlos Sanchez filled in for Sensei Brien.

Constant kihon….

I have taken class with Sensei Sanchez in the past, when I was a lower rank and his classes were tough but his advanced class is a killer.  We did close to 90 minutes of non-stop kihon with about 10 minutes of non-stop kata at the end of class.

For starters, we began in a horse stance doing punches and blocks.  Then, we stood up and with each arm did straight punch, tate zuki, ura zuki and then kage zuki.  Next, we stepped left, into a horse stance and did a left handed punch, back to center with a double punch, then step to the right with a right handed punch.  We then did the same leg movements with the four punches from above.   We also did the same drill with spear hand, knife hand, ridge hand and palm strike.

We also did another drill where we started in a horse stance, then turned to the left, stepped back with the right foot and did a block with reverse punch, then we did the same movement to the right.  We did all four blocks, rising, downward, inward and outward block.  We also did a similar drill where started in a standing position and stepped into a back stance with outward block and reverse punch in both directions.

When I thought that it couldn’t get any harder, we did another drill with front snap kick, low front thrust kick, side thrust kick and low side thrust kick.  We followed that up with rising elbow strike, outward to inward elbow strike and inward to outward elbow strike like in Jion.

Next, we got a partner and hit the pads.  We started with reverse punch, then straight punch, tate zuki, ura zuki and kage zuki.  Then we worked on the three elbow strikes as above and the spear hand, knife hand, ridge hand and palm strike.

Finish up with some kata….

We finished up some kata.  We did Heian Godan, Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai.

This felt almost like an interval workout.  I would guess that we had less then five minutes total rest but it felt really good and I wouldn’t mind doing a class like this in the future.

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.

Sensei Noia had us work on specific kumite attacks today.

Kumite drills….

We started out working on block and counter attack.  Our partner would move in and attack and we would work at blocking and then counter attacking them.

We spent a good amount of the class working on scoring with only certain attacks.  For example, we had one drill where we could only use punches to score.  Next, we could only use chudan kicks and then jodan kicks.

Kata in the mirror….

This is a drill that I often enjoy but don’t do often.  Sensei had us do a kata of our choice in mirror image.  For my first kata, I did HeianYondan which is always one of my favorites.  After that, I did Jion.  I finished up with Bassai Dai.  If you ever want a simple challenge, do Heian Shodan in mirror image.  It really makes you think before you move.