Archives for April 2010

I really enjoy Sensei Cieplik’s classes.  The only problem is that he shares so much of his knowledge in that 90 minutes, I have a very hard time remembering everything from class.  My wife made as comment to him one day, that it is hard to remember everything that he shares with us and he said that if you are ready to learn it, you will remember it.  That statement is so true and I am glad I remembered it.

Lots of kicking kihon….

After the warm up, we did front snap kick, kept the knee of the kicking leg up, turned 90 degrees to the left, then step back with kicking leg and set it down.  We did this all the way around and in both directions.  The idea is to turn from the hips and not the shoulders.  Next came the same drill but with reverse punch after we set our foot down.

Next, we stood with both feet together and touching.  We did a side snap kick and put feet back together, touching again.  This is a balance drill.  If the side snap kick is too hard to do, you can substitute a front snap kick to the side if needed.  This drill sounds easy but if you didn’t take class, give it a try, it’s a lot harder then it sounds.  The kick starts from the floor and ends back on the floor.

Next came back stance, with knife hand block.  We followed that with the same drill but added the kick.

Next, we started in a horse stance, stepped across and did a side thrust kick.  We followed that with horse stance, step across with side snap kick.  When doing side snap kick, get balance and kick from the floor.  Do not chamber the kick first (like from the drill above).

Scare your partner….

For the next drill, we paired up.  This is somewhat hard to explain but I will do my best.  We stood in front of our partner, then did and outside in front snap kick to the stomach, when then stepped through after the kick and made our partner back up with our intention.   The idea is that your are moving forward after the kick and pressuring your partner to move back and basically run away backwards.  If the kick didn’t stop them, you could follow up with another attack but this drill was meant to show the intention of what could come next.

Kata….

We started with Heian Shodan.  Sensei had us do it again but then after each punch, we took two steps forward.  Much like what we did in the partner drill above.  For example, from the first move, the downward, we stepped into the front punch and then took two steps forward.

We did all the Heian katas except for Heian Godan.  We also did Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai.  Sensei gave me a good tip for Jion.  When doing the moves with the outward block and stepping front punch, he told me to lean back to keep my back heel from popping off the floor.  This little fix really makes my Jion look so much better.

It was an awesome class.

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Sensei Brien gave us another hard class tonight.

Warm up with kihon….

We started in a horse stance with single, double and triple punches.  Next came rising, downward and inward blocks.

For the next drill we started in a horse stance, then stepped left and forward into front stance with a block and reverse punch, then back to horse stance with front punch, then we stepped right with block and reverse punch.

Next came some back stance drills.  we started in a horse stance with our hands at our sided, moved left into back stance with a knife hand block, then back to horse stance, then we moved right into back stance with knife hand block again.

After that we started in a fighting stance, jabbed fast then reverse punched and held it with focus.  It’s so hard to hold the reverse punch at the end when I am so used to pulling that hand back from free sparring.

Next we did a killer kicking drill.  We started with a very slow front snap kick and then we snapped it back as fast as I could and then set it down behind me as fast a I could.

Next came drills across the dojo.  Moving forward and back with rising block and reverse punch, same with downward block, inward and outward blocks.   After that we did back stance with front snap kick and knife hand block.

Finish up with kata….

We did Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan and Heian Godan.  Sensei explained the feeling that we should have when doing our kata.  Instead of doing each move and then really pushing hard on the kiai, he wants us to feel that each move it a kiai and have us keep that kind of intensity for every move, not just the kiai movements.

It was a very hard class and I didn’t have much of anything left at the end of class.

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I cannot even remember how many moves we did in Sensei Noia’s class today.  If I had to guess, I would bet that we did more moves than we do in the Kicks for Cures event.

Basics…

We started in a horse stance with front punch, then double punch, then rising, inward, outward and downward blocks.  From the same horse stance, we would pivot to left into a front stance, reverse punch, pivot back to a horse stance and double punch, then pivot to right in a front stance and reverse punch.

This was a really neat drill.  We started in a horse stance, we then bring knees together, step out to the left into a front stance and front punch.  Then back to horse stance with front punch and step to right and repeat.  Another drill, much like the previous where we bring our knees together between each move, was start in a horse stance, step into front stance with front punch, move back to horse stance with two punches then step back into back stance with knife hand block.

Kicks….

Next, we worked on kicking drills.  We started with single front snap kick moving forward and back, then double front snap kick followed by roundhouse kicks.  For the next drill we did three kicks, front snap kick, low side thrust kick and back kick.  We spent a lot of time on this drills and raised the height and power as we progressed.

I am sure that I left out some of the moves we did but it is just my subconscious trying to make me forget them.

This article was originally posted on www.shotokanplanet.org. Any reproduction on any other site is prohibited and a violation of copyright laws.