Time for Gankaku

We started class jogging back and forth across the dojo 10 times for a warm up.

While still warming up we moved to half court and back with different stances and hand techniques, then we did the same a second time but across the entire dojo.

Next, we worked on moving forward in a front stance with triple punch, step back into a back stance with knife hand block. Then, triple punch but step into stance back with mange uke. Next. step and punch, then step back into back stance block, turn then step punch again and step back with back stance knife hand block.

Next, we got a pad, then stand on the pad, bring one leg up with foot behind knee, arms in mange uke, bring both hands to the opposite side the knee is pointing to the side, side snap kick with back fist slow motion.

Next stand with one foot on the pad in horse stance, do the same moves as above then step down into a horse stance with reverse punch. We then did the same drill but without the pad.

The movements above prepared us for what was coming next.

Gankaku….

Sensei had us work on Gankaku doing single moves and then a group of moves at a time working up to the midpoint of the kata. We spent a good amount of time working on this kata and then we did it our own if we knew all the moves.

We finished up class doing the kata of our choice.