No up and down in your stances

We started out punching the pads with our partner, first in a horse stance, then in a cross leg stance, then a cat stance and then a front stance.  For all the drills not in horse stance we did moving techniques.  The key to the moving stance drills was to not move up and down when moving from stance to stance.

After we put the pads away, we started a drill in a back stance, then stepped forward and brought both feet together, then stepped back with the other foot into a into back stance with knife hand block.  We did the same with two arm up and down block from Heian Godan, then outward block, then low knife hand block and then downward block.

We started the next drill in a back stance facing forward, we then turned 90 degrees to into a back stance with knife hand block and then back to where we started.

We moved on to kata next and started with parts of Jion and then the entire kata.  Sensei has us working on moving our legs faster which is something that I have always had problems with.  The mind wants to move fast but the legs always seem behind for some reason.

We then worked on Bassai Dai.  We worked on many parts of the kata but one part in particular was when doing the low side thrust kick, we need to chamber our knee up in between our arms before the kick.  This is something that we have always been told but I seem to forget for some reason.  I have noticed this with many of the students that I help with and for some reason, even though we all know what to do with that move, it gets lost somewhere.

After that, we worked on katas of our choice.  I worked on Empi, Bassai Sho and Gojushiho Sho to finish up the class.