I always have a good class with Sensei Noia but today was exceptional.  For the last few months, he has been working on training drills that we haven’t done before.  Today’s class was a good example and not only did it give me some insight into how I should be training but a sore body to go with it.

Move slow

The first drill we worked on was standing upright, taking in a deep breath and then punching while exhaling very slowly.  The idea was to grab the floor with our feet, punch slow much like Hangetsu and then at the end, tense everything and relax.  It sounds very simple and straight forward but doing it is another story.

We did the same slow breathing drills standing, in a horse stance, in a back stance with a knife hand block, in a front stance with a punch and in a horse stance with a downward block all stationary.  We then did the same but moving forward with the front stance and front punch, the back stance with knife hand block, horse stance with palm heel and horse stance with the dropping strike from Jion.  This goal was to not move up and down between techniques and still move slowly with a strong, full body tense at the end and then instant relax.

Move slow, then fast

The next drills we worked on involved Taikyoku Shodan.  We did the first kata very slowly with the same action as the drills above and then the second time, we did each movement as fast as possible.  We did the same kata but with alternating slow and fast movements and then again with alternating fast and slow movements.

For example, the first time was a slow downward block followed with a fast punch, then a slow turn and downward block followed with a fast punch.  The second time was a fast downard block and slow punch and a fast turn with downward block and slow punch and so on.  These different slow and fast movements changed the dynamic of the kata.  I was surprised at how fast I was able to move after a slow movement.

We did the entire kata, one time with all the power we could put behind it and again with as much speed as possible.  We did the same with a kata of our choice and finished up with two more katas giving everything we had left.

It all comes together

Something that I realized after class was, we have been working up to this moment over the last few weeks of classes.  There were things that Sensei had us work on over the past four classes that were all put together in one class today.  Many times, we go through each class doing but not paying attention to the reason we are doing and then, after time, it all comes together.

 

It’s interesting how when you are working on something specific in your training outside the dojo, without telling your Sensei, he suddenly has a class that focuses on that particular thing.  For years, when I have been teaching or taking classes, it’s almost some type of psychic link that makes many of us think alike.

Today’s class was a perfect example.  In my training, over the last few months, I have been focusing on pulling with my front leg.  This often comes naturally to most students but it is something that I didn’t start focusing on until recently.  Even though I was doing it for years, putting the extra focus on pulling is making me move faster

Lots of horse stances

We started in a horse stance with 100 single punches.  Next came moving horse stances with the last two moves from Heian Nidan.  After that we started in a ready stance and moved into a back stance with the mange uke and hook punch from Jion and then the same but with the double punch from Bassai Sho.

The next drill was moving forward in horse stance doing the moves from the last two drills back and forth across the dojo.  The same stances followed but with the palm strike, dropping block/strike from Jion and the double punches from Kanku Sho.

Partner stance drills

The next drill was had one partner wrap their belt around the other partners hips and give them resistance moving across the dojo.  This was a reinforcement for the focus of pulling with the front leg.  After a couple of times across the dojo, we moved across the dojo without the belt.  The speed increase moving from stance to stance without the belt was huge.  Creating the tension with the belt and then taking it away really made a big difference.

We did the same belt drill again but this time we did Taikyoku Shodan.  Instead of moving forward, the added difficulty of the tension on the turns was a good challenge.  We did the same kata but without the belt again to see the changes from move to move again.

We finished up class doing four more katas of our choice.  With tired legs, doing four advanced katas was a another good challenge but that’s was good training is all about.

 

 

Today’s class focused on Kanku Dai.  This is one of those katas that I feel I have done forever but it never feels as good as the others.  Even though it is has a lot of basic moves, it is one of the katas that I don’t have that same feeling about as I do for others.

Get warm first

Sensei Noia had us warm up by running around the dojo then do a kata and repeat until we did all the Heian katas and Tekki Shodan.  We have done this warm up many times over the years and it seems that only since the last two years, I have been able to run fast and do all the katas without much trouble.  In the past, I used to have to walk or even skip the run around the dojo when I got to Heian Yondon but it just goes to show that consistent training, no matter what your age will allow you to improve.

Kanku Dai in sections

We spent a good amount of the class working on parts of Kanku Dai.  From the opening moves all the way to the end.  One drill in particular was the first move with the high open hand blocks in the back stance.  Sensei had us stand with the padded walls behind us, then we dropped down into a back stance and executed the high block against the pad.  This drill ensures that there is connection between the upper body and lower body before doing the arm movements.  If you are not settled in the back stance, hitting the wall behind will make your upper body go forward and your arm bounces off.  Hitting an object, when doing certain movements, lets you understand how the movements should be executed when doing them on the air.

We also went through many parts of the kata in sections, paying attention to our form with Sensei watching and correcting us.  One part of the kata, that I often stress when teaching is the reach with the left hand before the punch block and punch block.  Many students put their arm out in front of them without any purpose and the movement looks like someone in the dark searching for light switch.  If the movement is done with purpose, it looks and feels different.  It’s not a fast move or slow move and it’s not tense or loose, it’s somewhere in between all of those.

Kanku Dai is a long kata and it is easy to break it up into sections to work on so give it try and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.