Archives for 2011

Sensei Noia is still having us work on exam drills.  Today, he had the class work on sparring drills for the first 30 minutes or so.   I have to sit out sparring for some time, until I get my Cohron’s disease under control,  I did a bunch of  basics and kata until I was able to join the class to do some more basics and kata.

Basics and kata on the side….

While I was off to the side, I went through most of the exam criteria even though I am not testing.  It included moving forward and backward:

• downward block and reverse punch
• rising block with reverse punch
• inward block with reverse punch
• outward block with jab and reverse punch
• inward block, elbow strike and back fist
• back stance with knife hand block
• back stance with knife hand block, front snap kick and spear hand
• front snap kick and double front snap kick
• roundhouse kick and double roundhouse kick
• stepping across, in a horse stance, with side thrust kick and side snap kick
• roundhouse kick
• k with all the blocks and punching combinations, kicks

I finished with all of the Heian katas and Tekki Shodan.

Circle of doom….

I joined the class when the drills were really tough.  One partner put their arm straight out to the side and other partner put their leg straight out like a front snap kick and made a circle motion around our partners outstretched arm.  We did both clockwise and counter clockwise circles.   We did the same drill again but this time, we put our leg out like a side thrust kick.

Since I was the odd man out, I had to do slow motion side thrust kicks by myself.  Sensei Noia came over and stacked some pads up for me to kick over.  I never kicked as high as I did tonight.  My every day stretching seems to be paying off.

More basics….

For the basics, we did the following five movements only forward and then the same backward in reverse order.

• moving forward triple punch
• moving forward with rising block and reverse punch
• moving forward with rising block and reveres punch
• moving forward with inward block, elbow strike and backfist
• moving forward with outward block, jab and reverse punch

Next came the kicking drills.  We started with front snap kick to front, side thrust kick to side, back kick to rear, roundhouse to front and then reverse punch.  Next came, front snap kick to front, side thrust kick to front.  After those kicks, we did knife hand block, front snap kick and spear hand.  We then finished up the class with one, full speed and power kata.

I missed the sparring part, it did look like fun, but I know that I will be back to it no time.

Sensei Brien shared some different kicking techniques with us today.   These are modified kicking techniques that I do not remember doing in the past.

Step and kick, very fast….

We warmed up with some stationary from snap kicks.  Sensei mentioned that we should do this slowly and easily since the rest of the workout is going to be intense.

For our first drill, we started in a left foot forward fighting stance, then we stepped forward with the left foot and threw a rear leg front snap kick.  The key to this technique is to have the kick finish as the front foot steps down.  Sensei said that this will increase the speed of the kick by 20%.  It felt much faster than 20% to me.  This drill really works the hips hard and caused mine to extend farther and fast than I ever remember.

We did the same stepping drill as above but changed out the front snap kicks for side thrust kicks to the front and roundhouse kicks.  The side thrust kick was the most interesting for me since I felt I didn’t create much power when doing these kicks in the past.  The stepping motion made me use my entire body to throw the kick.   Sensei also said to try and bring the knee of the kicking leg across the body to the opposite side of the chest before kicking.

The second kicking concept, from a fighting stance again, was for us to pull the front foot back, under our hips and then throw the front snap kick.  The idea behind this was to move just far enough out of the way to avoid a reverse punch, from an opponent and throw a front snap kick before they move back.  Again, as above, the idea is to finish the kick as the front foot is moving back under your hip.

Get a partner and kick them….

Sensei had us partner up and work on the drills that we did above.  It was very hard for me to work with a partner because the kicks were flying out so fast, it was not easy to stop them.  Stepping in about a foot length really extended the reach, not only because of the foot moving forward but the momentum made my hips extend farther forward.  The pulling the front foot back drill was just as hard because out partner was moving toward us as the kick was coming in.   I could see this movement as an awesome self defense technique that would buckle someone very easily if the timing is right.

It was a great Karate class and  Sensei did mention that there was a good chance that our hips would be sore tomorrow but I guess he was wrong about that since mine hurt tonight.