This class was a little different for me than most.  Sensei Cieplik had me start class in the stairwell.

Kick up those stairs…

In order to improve my front snap kicks, that I seem to have been doing wrong for a long time now, Sensei had my go out to the stairwell.  From there, Sensei had me step up one, two then three stairs.  By stepping up three stairs, Sensei was able to see that I could raise my knee up almost to chest level.   Sensei then had me get into a front stance at the bottom of the stairs and do a front snap kick.  By starting with a motion as if I was walking up the stairs, I was able to kick correctly.  Sensei gave this to me as my homework.

Kihon….

For our basics, Sensei had us work on our various block punch combinations.  We did knee strike with front snap kick.  Next, we did moving forward and back with rising, downward, inward and outward blocks and reverse punch.  We also worked on front snap kick with front punch.

Kata, all the way up….

We finished class doing kata.  We started with Heian Shodan all the way to Bassai Dai.  I did what felt like the most awful Tekki Shodan of my life but that’s another story.  One thing that Sensei suggested is that I do Jion with a stick in my belt on my back.  If I learn forward or button pull, the stick will hit me in the back of the head.

It was good class and luckily for me, I have stairs at home so I can do my homework and kick up those stairs.

Sensei Noia had us work on specific kumite attacks today.

Kumite drills….

We started out working on block and counter attack.  Our partner would move in and attack and we would work at blocking and then counter attacking them.

We spent a good amount of the class working on scoring with only certain attacks.  For example, we had one drill where we could only use punches to score.  Next, we could only use chudan kicks and then jodan kicks.

Kata in the mirror….

This is a drill that I often enjoy but don’t do often.  Sensei had us do a kata of our choice in mirror image.  For my first kata, I did HeianYondan which is always one of my favorites.  After that, I did Jion.  I finished up with Bassai Dai.  If you ever want a simple challenge, do Heian Shodan in mirror image.  It really makes you think before you move.

Sensei Cieplik worked us hard today.  We spent a good amount of time working from our core.

Turn the body with the core, not the chest…

After our warm up, Sensei had us start in a left foot forward front stance.  From there, we did a rear leg front snap kick, we then blocked with the same leg we kicked with and turned 90 degrees to the left while standing on our stationary leg.  From there, we stepped back into a front stance.

We did the same move as above but added a reverse punch after we stepped back.  We then did the same move again but we brought our right hand to our left knee as we did the block to fully engage the core and to ensure that we weren’t using our shoulders to turn.

Do your kihon the correct way….

Next we spent some time working on our common kihon drills.  We did moving forward and back with the various block and punch combination.  After seeing a few of our movements, Sensei has us move backward into a blocking stance, reach forward with the front hand, put the soon to be blocking are arm under the other arm, then step back with outward block and reverse punch.  Keeping the head back and not leaning forward is an important part of the this movement.

downward, inward and rising block with reverse punch.

I really like Hangetsu….

After we finished up with our basic, we worked on kata.  Sensei had us start with the Black Belt kata, Hangetsu.  He counted out the moves of the kata so whoever wanted to try it was welcome to join in.  With my stiff joints and limited hip mobility, this slow moving kata felt awesome to me.  The tensing of the muscles and long, deep breath really made me feel at home.  I am sure that I have  to learn before I understand this kata but at first glance, I really like it.

After doing Hangestsu twice, we worked on Jion, Bassai Dai, and Heian 5, 4, and 3.