Cold dojo, good Karate

I have to admit, a cold dojo, running back and forth five times and the cold weather outside is good at making my calves cramp.  The rest of our warm up was stepping across the dojo doing a squat and then the stance of our choice.  Needless to say, I was pretty much done by the time we were finished with the warm up.

Our drills started in a horse stance with single punches and then double punches.  While still in a horse stance, we pivoted on the heels to the left with a reverse punch and then to the right with a reverse punch.  We did a similar drill but this time we pivoted to the left with a reverse punch, then back to center with a double punch to the front, then we pivoted to the right with a reverse punch again.

This drill is such an excellent hip opener,  I always say that I need to do this drill outside of class and I think I need to add it to my daily kata routine to get me into the habit.
For the next drill, we started in a back stance and moved forward with a knife hand block.  We followed that with step forward once in a back stance with knife hand block, turn 270 degrees into a back stance with knife hand block until we turn four times back to facing the front.

We spent the rest of the time working on kata.  We did Jion slowly two times then once more at full speed and power.  We did Empi next and then followed that with a kata of our choice (Gojushiho Sho for me) once very slow and two more times at full speed and power.