This was a fun class.  Sensei Cieplik had us do things that he said we don’t often do.

Mentally challenging….

We did the normal warm up with our kicks and then moved right into our kihon drills.

Sensei wanted us to work on things that we normally don’t do.

We started moving forward and back in a back stance with rising block.  Still in a back stance, we did inward block and then gedan shuto.  The movements themselves weren’t too hard but getting the mind to do them was.  It just goes to show how we get in a pattern of doing the same movements.

Next, we did front snap kick, then block with the same leg while turning 90 degrees and put the kicking leg behind us to move into a front stance.  Next, we did the same move but after putting our back leg down, we did a reverse punch.

For the next drill, we did a front snap kick but to three targets.  We kicked to the left rib area, right rib area and the center without putting the kicking leg down.  The idea was to not twist the hips to kick to the outside center targets.

Back snap kick….

Here was a move that I never remember seeing until today.  We started in a horse stance looking right, we then slide the front leg backward half way, then push the back leg behind into low front stance, with the leg straight and then snap our heel to our butt, much like how we snap our kick back after a front snap kick.   This kick is meant to be used on an attackers groin and I am sure it would be really effective.

We finished up doing a kata, the name of the kata escapes me, from another style of Karate.  It was a very flowing kata and a lot of fun.

After five years, I believed that the hardest classes were behind me.  I thought that since I was this far along I could take any type of punishment after some of the classes that I had in the past.  We can throw that idea out the window.  Sensei Noia gave us one of the hardest, if not the hardest, classes that I remember ever having.

Not for the weak hearted….

We started with the usual warm up by jogging back and forth across the gym eight times.  After that, we did low walks but with a little twist.  We did low walks to the quarter line then 10 squats and back to the start, next we went to the half line and did 10 more squats and back, then we went to the three quarter line and did 10 more squats and back and finally, we went to the end of the gym and did, you guessed it, no, 20 squat this time and back to the start.  My legs were calling me some really nasty names at this point.

For a rest, we all spread out and did a very slow kata of our choice.  I did Heian Shodan since I always like to warm up with that kata whenever I have a choice.

Next, we were supposed to do bear crawls to the quarter, half, three quarter, end and back but I ended up doing low walks again since my coordination for bear crawls is not the best.  Instead of doing squats at each distance, we did 10 push ups at each quarter line and 20 at the end.

For another rest, we did another kata.  This time I picked Heian Yondan since I always like doing this kata.

Low walk kata….

For the rest of the class, we did low walks to each line again but this time we did a kata and then jogged back to the start line.  I did Heian Nidan first, Heian Sandan second, Tekki Shodan third and Bassai Dai at the end.

I think there might have been a couple more katas somewhere in the mix but I might have blacked out or am just trying to block it from my mind.  The moral of this story is, just when you think you have had the hardest training day ever, your Sensei might just prove you wrong.

Sensei Brien had us work on sparring basics today.

Block and counter….

We spent much of the class working on basic block and counter drills.  Our partner would shift in, reverse punch and then shift out.  As they threw reverse punch and started shifting out we would throw a roundhouse kick.

We also worked on the same type of drill but the attacker was allowed to throw another attack after the roundhouse kick counter and then we were able to throw a reverse punch after the roundhouse kick.

The idea was to continue throwing attacks and counters until someone scores.   Sensei also made that point that throwing that counter attack even after getting hit by an opponent could mean a point in a sparring match for you and not your opponent if it is better than theirs.  There is a chance that even though they hit you, the referee might not have seen it or it might not have met the needed criteria for a point in a  sparring match.

We didn’t do a lot of different drills today but this was a great refresher.