Warm up with stances

Sensei Noia has been having us spent a lot of time on our stances.  The good part is, Sensei is having us do this stance training at the start of class not only to improve our stances but to also warm us up.  We also spent a lot of time working on kata tonight and I have no issues with that.

Stances for a warm up….

We started doing stances from a kata of our choice across the dojo and back.  For example, if you picked Heian Godan, you would do back stances, front stances, cross leg stances and horse stances.

Pick a kata….

Next, we did three katas of your choice, one slow and the other two fast.  I did Gojushiho Sho for my kata.

After that, we picked a kata and do up to a certain part, mostly the first kiai and sensei would come around, watch it and give everyone corrections. For my kata, I picked Empi and we did it at least 7 times.  Then we did the same but from middle of kata to end and again, Sensei came around to give us corrections for that part of the kata.

I enjoy Empi but the jump really did a number on my back tonight.  For all of you, who are working on Empi, do not look down at the floor when landing the jump.  I know, I wasn’t too smart to look down when jumping but I ended up jumping higher than I expected and I looked down to see how I was going to land and ended up jamming my hip into my lower back.  Needless to say, my back was not too happy, so my advice to you is keep your posture at all times, especially when landing the Empi jump.

Everyone walked away with at least two corrections for their kata of choice and class was over.