Turn fast

The goal that Sensei Noia gave us tonight was to turn fast when doing our katas.

We started class by doing Heian Shodan all the way up to Bassai Dai and then back down again.  Doing 16 katas in a row gets the blood flowing pretty well.

Turn fast….

We did some kihon drills first, starting in a front stance, we stepped forward with inward block and reverse punch then stepping back with inward block and reverse punch. When doing this drill, we were to keep the front knee from moving side to side between the blocks and punches.

Sensei had us work on all the following drills with one goal in mind, turning fast in our katas.

Now for the turns. For the first group of movements, we started in a left foot forward front stance and stepped forward with a front punch. From there we did a 180 degree turn into a back stance with knife hand block. Then we stepped into a back stance with a knife hand block.  We did the same with the right foot forward.

For the next drill, we stepped forward with a front punch then into a back stance with a knife hand block. From there we pivoted behind 180 degrees with a downward block and then we turned back 180 degrees in the other direction with a downward block.

The last drill we did started in a front stance stepping forward with a front punch, we then turned 270 degrees into back stance with a knife hand block, then step and punch, turn 270 degrees into back stance with knife hand block and then twice more for a total of four turns.  Again, the key here was to make that big turn with as much speed as possible.  Even if we fall over, the key was to the get the body moving fast.  We did the same drill with the other foot forward and then another time with the double arm outward and downward block from Heian Godan.

We spent the rest of the class working on Kanku Dai doing chunks of the kata with turns.  We did many parts that Sensei counted for us and then three full katas on our own.  We then did Gojushiho Sho counted out twice and once on our own.