Excellent class!

We spent the entire class working on our footwork with attention to keeping our feet in the right place when moving forward. We started with a simple moving forward front punch while our partner watched our front foot. The goal of the drill was to keep our front foot from moving as we step forward. Many people have a tendency to adjust the foot before moving instead of keeping it grounded. It is acceptable to to pivot in the ball the front foot as it becomes the back foot but moving it before then is a no no.

We then did that same type of drill but our partner watched our back foot to make sure that our heals were not popping up when moving. I don’t know how many times we did these drills but we spent near 45 minutes or more working on them.

After the drills, we spent the rest of the time doing some kata.

I really like classes that work on basics like these. Since my hips are getting better with each visit to the chiropractor, I can really get low in my stances and bring my hips in to my punches now and doing class like this is a great help.

Good class.

We got right in to some sparring drills. We spent most of the class working on focus and concentration. We did many drills where we shift in, jab, shift out, reverse punch and shift out again. The idea was to punch with full power and speed and also keep complete control. We than did a few more drills where we could use any combination but again, full speed and control. We also did a few drills where our partner would attack and we would block and counter.

After that sparring was done we did kata with a Sensei watching us closely. I did Tekki Shodan and I have to make my kata more fluid. I am still doing the robotic moves and even thought my power is good, I am pausing too long between each move.

Our Sensei taught us so many things in this class, I am having a hard time remembering everything. I really need to bring a notebook with me to class.

We did the normal kicking warm up and then moved in to downward block with reverse punch. After about three moves Sensei said “stop”. He then had us pair up with someone near our size and then, insert suspenseful music here, he had us massage each others shoulders and neck. It seems that many of us were tensed up and he wanted us to relax so that we could move better.

After about five minutes of massage, everyone was pretty relaxed and moving much closer to way Sensei felt we should. We did the normal group of combinations and my stances felt really good. I was moving fairly fast and my hip rotation felt great.

We then worked on something old but with a new twist. We did moving forward, front snap kick with front punch. The part that made this different is Sensei told us, instead of punching straight ahead after the kick, he told us to punch down instead. This made the move very different and made it much easier for me to hit with my shin and not just my hand. It really made the punch feel much more grounded and powerful.

We then spent a good amount of time working on moving forward front punch. Sensei wanted us to work on all five parts of the movement. We worked on this before and today he made a comment that was a little different, he said to concentrate on the elbow strike. This made the punch feel much different. He also has us focus on the other parts, guarded back leg, knee sweep, shin clash and the punch, one by one and then we put all of them together.

We finished up the class with some kata. We did Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan and Heian Godan.

After class, Sensei asked if there was something wrong since my kicks were off. He said that he noticed it right away and I wasn’t extending my kicks. Oddly enough, it felt that I was buckling at my abs when throwing my kicks and my Sensei saw it.

It was a really good class.