Sensei Cieplik had us work on some basic kihon but with extra attention to the hips.

Hips over heels….

After our warm up, Sensei had us do a few basic movements then had us modify then to get the hips more involved.  We started with our hands on our hips, then move forward into cat stance, then pet the mouse or gently extend our front foot forward as far as possible, then move the foot an inch more then push the hips forward. This really made my stance much shorter then normal but Sensei mentioned that if your front stance is too short when doing this drill, this drill will improve it.  We did the same drill with front snap kick and front punch.  The whole idea is to make sure that the hips stay over the heels.

Sparring kihon…

We started with shuffle up, front leg roundhouse kick come down and reverse punch.  The next move was jab, reverse punch and rear leg front snap kick.

Next, we did a similar drill but after the kick, we come down into a low stance and try to touch our chest to our bent knee and then we pivot on the heels and throw a reverse punch in the other direction.  The move is similar to a move in Empi, one of our black belt katas.

The next drill was made for me even though I cannot do it too well.  Sensei had us stand upright with our knee up in the position of front snap kick.  We then took our hand and put it under our knee and put our a side thrust kick.  The idea is to have our arm help us do the kick.  Sensei said either our kicks will get really good and/or our arms will get really strong when doing this drill.

Another kicking drill we worked on was a front snap kick but with our toes.  The idea was to turn the hip and use our or toes to strike our target.  It felt much like a low forward thrust kick but when using the toes, the kick needs to be directed at soft tissue.

Kata….

We spent time working on Heian Shodan, Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan, Heian Godan, Tekki Shodan, Jion, Bassai Dai and Kanku Dai.

Sensei told us something that I don’t recall him mentioning before.  He said, when you do the movements in the kata dont do all moves over the top, look first and choose if need to go crazy.

This was a really good class tonight.  Sensei Brien had us work on some of the mental aspects of our Karate.

Kihon….

Sensei had us start with some basics.  We did standing up with front punch, moving forward and back with front punch, moving forward and back with various blocks and reverse punch and moving froward and back with back stance and knife hand block.

Kime and Zanshin….

Sensei gave us his explanation of kime and zanshin.   He explained kime as the focus of energy to a small area.  For example, when punching a target, if you can focus your power or energy to the end of your two knuckles, it will have more kime than an un-focused punch or hitting with the wrong part of your fist.  The goal is to punch a hole through your opponent and haveyour punch stop somewhere behind them.

He explained zanshin as expanded mind or awareness.  When doing a basic movement or kata, instead of just seeing where your are striking or blocking, you need to see all around you and be ready for surprises.

Kata but feel everything around you….

We worked on Heian Shodan but Sensei wanted us to feel zanshin.  Instead of looking at just to area we were blocking or striking at, we needed to stay aware of other threats around us.

Sensei had us work on the kata or our choice and he walked around coming up behind or next to us while we were doing our kata.  For example, I was doing Bassai Dai and he walked up, stood next to me and punched at the side of my head.  Even though was in the middle of a movement in my kata, I was able to see his attack and prepare to block it.  It was pretty cool.

Get a partner….

We spent the rest of the class trying to read our partners attack before they threw them. We needed not to focus on one area but instead focus on their entire body and read the attack before they could complete it.  Even though we did this drill with a few different partners, we were all able to see the movements before they could throw them a good amount of the time.  It was an extra awareness that I never really worked on before.

A great point that Sensei made tonight, related to sparring, was do not worry about winning or loosing,  just do your karate.  If you aren’t focused on winning or loosing, your Karate will flow.  Great advice but now I need to figure out how to apply it.

Sensei Noia wanted us to work on some shifting basics today.

The band Elwood, the band….

We started with a partner and an elastic band.  We faced other while one partner held the handles and the other wrapped the band around our waist.  From the point, the partner with band around their waist would shift backward and the other would hold the band.  We would shift back and forth and then when Sensei counted, we would shift back twice and then shift in and reverse punch our partner.  I was working with my friend Robert and we were really hit each other very hard.  There’s only a handful of people that I can hit this hard and Robert is one of them who enjoys returning the favor.

After we finished the band drills, we did some free sparring using the same techniques that we worked on while using the bands.  Shift out twice with our partner and then shift in an punch.

Non-stop kicks….

We finished up class with 60 seconds of non stop kicks.  One partner would throw continuous kicks while the other tried to block all of them.   We then switched off and it was our partners turn.   This was an extremely tiring drill but a lot of fun.

I was using the x-block like that in Heian Yondan and Heian Godan to block most of the kicks and it works really well.  It’s always neat to be able to apply movements from katas when sparring, in my opinion.