Squeeze your knees through the middle.

Sensei Noia had us start out with a warm up much like last week.  After that we spent a lot of time working on our stances and then some of the group torture drills while doing kata.

Squeeze your knees through the middle….

For the first drill, we stood in a ready stance, then stepped out to the left in to a front stance and punched, then stood up again and did a rising block.  We then stepped to the right, punched and stood up again with arising block.

Next, from a horse stance, we stepped to the left in to a front stance and did a reverse punch, then stepped back in a front stance and did a front punch, then we moved into a horse stance and punched again.  We then repeated on the other side.

We followed it up with more stances.  We held all of the following stances for a 10 count.  We started in a horse stance, then a square leg stance, then right and left leg front stance, right and left leg back stance and both right and left leg cat stance holding the front foot off the floor.

Conditioning kata, part 2….

We spent the rest of class working on kata with alternating conditioning drills much like last week.  While one group did their belt level kata, the other two groups did conditioning drills.

While the third kyu’s were doing their Jion, the Shodan’s did burpee’s or rockets (squat, throw your legs straight behind you, pushup, back to the bottom of the squat position and jump up). The 1st and 2nd kyu’s did push ups.  We then rotated and the 1st & 2nd did Bassai Dai and the on the third rotation, the Shodans did Kanku Dai, Empi or any of the Shodan or Nidan kata.

For the second round, the conditioning drills were, running in placing bringing your knees as high up as possible and crunches or sit ups for the other group.