We started class with a partner doing alternating kicks (front snap kick, roundhouse kick and side thrust kick) with shuffle up front leg and then rear leg to get warmed up.

A quick anchorman sparring session for the people who are testing for Shodan. I went off to the side with another student to work on some kata since both of us forgot our sparring gear. We worked on Gojushiho Sho and ended up doing four or five katas.

Back to the same partner to do one-step sparring for the others who are testing for Kyu ranks. Doing one-step, since I have been a Shodan, is always fun since I am not limited to the exam rules for one-step which is fairly simple when it comes to block and counterattack. Doing counter attacks with elbows or other attacks is always something that keeps each partner on their toes.

We spent a good amount of time working on the exam basics which includes a lot of kicks, more than I remember, standard block and counter moves going forward and back along with a lot of shifting movements. I don’t know how many we did but it seemed as if the shifting was never going to end.

After that, it was time for kata. For this, all the people who are examining has to do the kata for the rank they hope to achieve and everyone was able to pick the kata of their choice which gave me some more time to work on a new kata.

For the warm up, we did heian Shodan through Tekki Shodan. This is a always a good warm up for as long as I take my time. If I start off pushing the first katas too much, my form breaks down and it sets the tone for the entire class. I realized that I don’t care if I am the first one done of the last, the key is doing the warm up and doing it well. Today, I did the katas slowly, with good form overall and the entire class felt better than when I push the katas from the start.

After the katas, we worked on some kihon. We started in front stance and did triple kicks across the dojo consisting of front snap kick, side thrust kick and back kick. After that, we did front stance with inward block, move into horse stance with elbow strike to the middle of the dojo and then the same techniques but we added reverse punch to the end. We did the same moving backward.

Next, we worked on outward block, jab and reverse punch moving forward and back. Next came horse stance stepping across with side snap kick and side thrust kick. We continued in a horse stance but with a shuffle into side snap kick, another shuffle with side thrust kick and a step behind with a side thrust kick.

After the kihon came kata. We picked a kata and did the stances only from it moving across the dojo in the straight line. This was harder than it sounds when doing a long kata like Gojushiho Sho. The point of this drill was to change of minds from doing katas in preset pattern to doing them in a line. We did the same but this time, adding the hand techniques.

Kata in a box

We did kata in a small space. The idea was to do kata in nothing larger than a six by six foot space, depending up how long your stance are.  It doesn’t matter if you have to switch feet between moves, you can’t move out of your box. Another good way to make you think out of the box, pun intended.

We finished up and did kata the normal way and then do it again with your eyes closed. Eyes closed kata is always a challenge. Oddly, I was told that I was all over the place, doing Sochin, but I ended up facing the correct way in almost the same spot that I started on.

This type of training really showcases why Sensei Noia is the team kata coach for our club.

Today, Sensei Noia had us work on some awesome stance training drills. We started with a partner with the outside of our foot touching the outside of our partners foot. We alternated moving into front stance and then backward into front stance keeping contact with our partner’s foot. We did the same but after moving forward in the front stance we moved back into back stance. Next we added an attack to front stance and a knife hand block in back stance.

Sensei counted out Heian Shodan twice and then we did it on our own. The same with Heian Nidan. The idea behind this was to try to keep our body from going up and down between stances.

Next we did moving forward with front punch but focusing on moving from the hips and not from shoulders. I have found that you almost have to throw your leg forward and tighten the lower abdominals to do this properly and it is certainly one thing that took me many years before I could do it correctly.

We finished up class with five katas of our choice, making sure that we do them with the principles that we focused on earlier in class.

I often write about principles that sound rudimentary but you would be surprised how many students, including some of the higher ranks need this type of training. It’s easy to get into bad habits and even harder to fix them and classes like these always helps me realize that no matter how long I train, I still have to correct my form.