We spent almost all of the time, in both classes, doing sparring drills.

We started shifting back and forth to warm up.  Then someone would lead the class and we would follow their shifting moves.   We then partnered up while one shifts and we keep up with them.  Next, the same type of drill but with attacks and blocks.  Both classes were similar but in the second class, with the advanced belts, we did some free sparring.  I got to spar my friend Robert, he always tries to sweep my front leg or hook kick my head but I really pay close attention when I spar him and look for those moves in particular.  He came close to sweeping me this time but I did have a reason.  I tore the bottom of my right foot open on the floor of the gym and I was paying more attention to the pain than Roberts moves but I was still able to keep enough mind on the sparring to keep him from taking me down.

We finished up with a bunch of low walks and class was then over.

Ouch!

Hard class again.

We started wtih a hard warm up.  I was sweating like mad within the first five minutes of the warm up and it didn’t get any easier as class went on.  One of the best parts about taking the advanced classes are that we get a serious conditioning workout along with advanced moves that aren’t normally done in the lower rank classes.

We spent much of the class working on moving our legs very quickly.  For example, starting from the ready stance in Heian Shodan, we had to move in to the downward block very fast.  After five or six tries, our Sensei felt that we were moving fast enough.  I always gauge myself by trying to move fast than the black belts around me and I was either keeping up or moving faster than the ones I was able to watch while still concentrating on my moves.  We did all of Heian Shodan, doing all the movements with high speed but it was interesting when moving from facing left with a front punch and then turning to the opposite side with say a downward block.  That movement is long and requires the foot to travel a long way but our Sensei had us bring out feet together and then push them out quickly.  It made the move much more simple but doing fast and smooth was somewhat hard for me.  I did get better at it but I am certainly not breaking any speed records.

After many many drills, we worked on some group kata.  Doing some of the Heian katas, then Tekki Shodan and finishing up with some Jion.  I like the look of Jion.  For someone my size, Jion is a really cool kata.  It just feels like a kata made for strong people.  The front snap kick with the three punches feels very powerful and the rising block, move forward with front punch feels like a steam roller.

We finished up with some of our own kata.  I must have done Tekki Shodan at least 500 times over the last six months but I made a mistake in class.  I started doing the moves for the first half of the kata over again when I should have been doing the second half.

Either way, class was really good but my hips kept waking me up during the night after that class.

Classes were hard!

We started the first class with kata for a warmup.  We  did all of the Heian kata and we did our own kata twice so I did Tekki Shodan.

We spent a lot of time working on sparring drills.  We did anchor man drills which gave everyone a chance to score against each other.

The second class got interesting, we did a lot of sparring drills again but then we worked on throws.  We threw a roundhouse kick at our partner then they would grab out leg, pull it around and take us down.  We ended up doing about five different take downs.  Even though it was a good workout, it was painful hitting the floor so many times.