Sensei Noia has us work on some sparring drills today.

Warm up with some kicks….

I have had a lot of problems with my kicks in the past but I found something out today.  Even though my roundhouse kicks are not what I want them to be, oddly enough, my hook kicks are somewhat good.  We partnered up and exchanged hook kicks back and forth for a good amount of time.

Next, we worked on some basic sparring drills.  Shifting in and out with reverse punches and blocks.  After some distance drills, we got into groups of three.  One partner would stand in the middle while they other two were on the outside.   The partner in the middle would turn to one partner and attack, then switch to the other partner in non-stop fasion.  It’s like free sparring with no rest and two different partners.

I am glad that Sensei Noia is spending some extra time on sparring basics, since I know that really need it.

Sensei Beth Noia ran class tonight and it was one of the harder kicking classes that I have had in a while.

Get a pad and a partner…

We started off with some partner kicking drills.  The first drill had us standing in front of our partner while they held a pad but instead of kicking the pad, Sensei had us extend our foot and touch the pad and when she counted, we had to retract our leg as fast as possible.  We often work on the kick itself but seldom spend time working on the retraction with is often more important.  I ended up partnering with my wife and because of her back problems, I ended up doing the drills both of us and was able to get in the double the work.

Next came side thrust kicks.  Our partner stood in a horse stance and held a pad about waist high.  We then did a side thrust kick and rested our foot on the pad.  Each time Sensei counted, we pulled our leg back into the starting position.  After that drill, we put our pad back on the pad and then as Sensei counted we picked our foot up off the pad and held it up.

Next came some punching drills.  My son partnered up with me for this drill.  One of us held the pad while the other shifted in and reverse punched the pad.  We spent a good amount of time working on some distance drills and then some stationary reverse punch drills.

Walking after this class was a little tough but nothing good comes easy.

Sensei Cieplik revisited the base, retreat and attack concept he and Doc Pusateri explained to me in the past.

ten-no-kata….

Sensei had us spend some time on some ten-no-kata moves.  From the ready stance, we stepped forward and did a long front punch really reaching forward, from there we stepped back into the ready stance and then moved into a back stance with knife hand block.  We started with the left foot forward in the front stance and the left foot back in the back stance.  We then repeated the movement with the right leg in front and back respectively.

Hard punches….

This drill worked on the base, retreat and attack concept.  With our reverse hand out, we bent our back leg and loaded our weight on to it into an almost cat stance with very little weight on the front leg.  From there, we pushed forward and as the front foot planted on to the floor we let a front punch fly.  This gave the punch an all new feeling and I actually heard the sleeve of my gi pop as I let the punch go.  I really need to test this out on the heavy back to see what it feels when it connects with something.

Another drill we worked on was standing in a ready stance, we would stand on the middle of our feet (base), we then put our weight back on to our heals (retreat) and then we put our weight on to the ball of our feet and threw a front punch.  I cannot explain the feeling in text and you need to try it for yourself to grasp it.  It took me a good amount of tries to “get it” but once I did, it was easier to keep repeating it.

Step and punch, rinse and repeat….

The next drill was a kumite drill.  For this, we started in a front stance, then we stepped forward twice and did a reverse punch each time.  After that we stepped forward three times with three reverse punches.  The key is to start the first reverse punch when our feet come together after starting to move from the front stance.  It is a good drill to practice since it works very well when free sparring from what I have found.

Heian Shodan with base, retreat and attack….

Sensei had us finished up doing Heian Shodan but he wanted us to use the base, retreat and attack concepts when doing the kata.  The certainly slow the kata a good amount but it gives us another way to do our kata.