This was a very hard class.

Sensei Noia had us a different warm up.  We started by jogging back and forth across the gym.  Next came shuffling back and forth.  Then jogging forward trying to kick our butts with our feet.  side kicks in circles.  I think we did each movement at least four times across the gym.  When then did our normal stretching routine.

Next came side kick circles.  Sensei had us get a partner, they held our their hand, we did a side thrust kick and then circled their hand with our foot both clockwise and counter clockwise.

After that, our partner put both hands out in front in a cup position and we did a side thrust kick and rested our foot in their hands.  Next Sensei had us raise our leg up off our partners hands, pull the kicking leg back to the start position of the kick and then put it it back to the resting position.  The idea was to bring the out stretched leg back to the start of the kick very quickly along with strengthening our legs.

We spent a good amount of time working on just those movements and we also did some conditioning movements too.

We finished up the class holding out stance for one minute each.  Horse stance, front stance with both legs and back stance with both legs.  Sensei Noia wants us to do this as homework each to help improve our stances.

Today, Sensei Gatch was away at a tournament in Florida so Sensei Plocharczyk trained us.

We started out with some partner sparring drills.  The first drill was some simple shift in, jab and reverse punch and then shift out movements.  Next we did the same thing but as we moved out, our partner tried to counter with a reverse punch.  Now along those same lines but different, we did the same jab and reverse punch attack, then our partner would counter with the reverse punch but then we would curve our body and hit them with a backfist the jaw.  The idea was to bend our body so that their reverse punch could not reach us but our backfist could still reach them.  The different part is that we are always told to shift away and not curve our body like this but this is really and effective move especially for self defense purposes.  We spent a good amount of time working on that movement before moving on.

Next, we did a movement where our partner threw a right hand jodan front punch, we then blocked with our right hand, stepped through, put our right hand on their right shoulder,  put our front leg behind them but hip to hip, grabbed their belt and in a circular movement, bumped their hip with ours and took them down to the ground.  The key to this movement is using the hip power.  By bumping their hip, it takes their balance away and allows the momentum to carry them around and too the ground for a good pounding or stomp.

We finished up class working on some breakfalls.  Back when I was in Aikido, we practiced break falls all the time since most of our movements ended with one of us on the floor.  I was still able to do them fairly well even after 15 years has gone by.

It was good class.

This was one of the harder classes that I recall in some time.  This wasn’t so much mentally hard but it was physically hard.

Sensei Noia had all of us get a pad.  We put the pad on the floor, knelt down and then put our left knee on it.  From this position, we stood up and threw a front snap kick then put our same knee back down on the pad.  We did this 10 times on each side.  We then did a roundhouse kick from the same starting position.  We then moved the pad and did the same thing without it, being sure to put our knee down easily.  Putting my knee down easily was much easier said than done for me.

The next movement, again from the floor starting position was front snap kick, side thrust kick and back kick.  pad, bend back leg, stand and kick. both front and roundhouse.

During the class, we had some conditioning movements.  The first being clockwise pushups.  We started with a pushup at the 12 0’clock position and kept doing them, moving our upper body around in a circle, until we returned to the same 12 o’clock position that we started at.  We then did the same thing but this time counter clockwise.  We also did a drill where we lay on our stomachs and tried to kick our butts with our heels.  We ended up doing 50 reps each leg.  After that came a lying bicycle movement where we lay on our back, raise our upper and lower body off the flow and move our legs as if we are pedaling a bike.

We then finished things up with some partner drills.  Our partner would punch, we would block then punch and our partner would block with the same hand he or she punched with and then we would do the same.  It is a little tough to get coordinated with the movement at first but it gets better the more you do it.

Very hard but good.