Today, Sensei Noia took us out on the hill for some good old fashioned outdoor Karate training. I am going to call this area the hill but I imagine it is more like a crater like you find on the moon. I have never visited the moon so I cannot be sure.
That hill is steeper than I remember…….
We started out with a little warm up by running from the low point of the hill all the way to the top and back. Next, we got into a front stance and moved up the doing a single punch, block or kick, then back down. Going down seems much harder to me. Next came any combination of blocks and punches. From there it became harder with one legged double kicks going up the hill. Then came jumping kicks up the hill.
The next thing we did was low walks up and down the hill. After that came kata. we did two Heian katas, Tekki Shodan and then our own belt kata. Doing Kanku Dai on hill was somewhat tough when it came to doing the side snap kicks but the double jumping kick wasn’t too bad.
We finished up with frog jumps from the bottom of the hill all the way to top and then back inside we went.
Slow motion….
Now, back inside we did slow motion free sparring.  The object of this drill is to focus on what your partner is doing and look for openings to attack them. This is a neat drill because it takes all of the ego out of sparring and lets both partners attack and defend without the pressure. We switched partner about eight times and it was interesting working with some of the younger kids.
Wash your hands when you are done…
We finished up with the sticky hands drill. For this drill, your put your wrist against your partners wrist and try to read when each other is going to attack by feel. If you can feel the attack, you can block. We did one and two handed versions of the drill with many different partners.
It was a great class but I am not sure how hard walking will be over the next couple days.
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