We have been doing a lot of work to prepare for you upcoming rank exams. I haven’t been feeling too well for the last five days and I don’t think my performance tonight was up to normal because of it.

We started with warm up and then moved right into basics. We did all of the basic blocks, outward, inward, downward and rising with revers punch. We also worked on knife hand block with front kick and nukite. Next came outward block, horse stance with elbow strike and backfist. We also did the normal kicking drills, side thrust, front snap, roundhouse and combinations of those kicks.

After that came one-step sparring. That feels so better to me than before. Since my wife was still not feeling well, I got to work with one of our 1st kyu brown belts. It is always nice to work with someone with a higher rank every now and then to get an idea if my techniques are good or bad. I was able to move and block without any problems and my counters were strong as ever but a little farther away than when I work with my wife.

We finished up with kata. My kata felt good and Sensei Noia gave me one takeaway to work on. He said that I need more power when I step and do the outward block.

Good class.

Before class:

One each of Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan, Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan and Heian Godan.  Five Tekki Shodan and two Jion.

Helping prepare us for our upcoming rank exam, Sensei Noia had us work on some of the more advanced kihon.

Most of us should already be fairly proficient at blocks with reverse punches, he had us work on movements such as knife hand block, front snap kick with nukite.  I was having a hard time getting my legs working the right way and my feet felt like there were dragging instead of moving.  My stances felt off and my nukite felt weak.  I was feeling a bit under the weather so I assume that was why I was having problems.

We also did front stance with outward block, horsestance with elbow strike and backfist.  I was pulling my elbow back too far instead of striking straight.

We then worked on some kicks.  Side thrust to the side with roundhouse to the front.  Front snap kick to the front with side thrust to the front.  Then horse stance with side thrust.  After that came horse stance with side snap kick.  My side thrust kicks felt good and my right leg kick was extremely strong.  I was able to kick hard and then hold it for a second before setting my foot down.

We then did a form of anchorman one-step.  One of us would start in front of the line and block with counter and then rotate to the back of  line.  Since I was the only adult in the group and everyone else was about a foot shorter than me, I had to shorten up my shifts when blocking.  It brought a whole different feel to the movements since I am used to working with partners that are near the same height as me.

Sensei Noia had all of us come out for kata one at a time.  I was tired but I volunteered to go first.  After getting compliments from Sensei Plocharczyk the night before, I did my kata the same way.   Sensei Noia said that my kata looked really good and better then before so I plan on trying to keep that up going forward.

We then lined up and class ended.

This was an interesting class.

Sensei Plocharczyk led the class and started us out with some kata for a warm up. We started with Heian Shodan and continued all the way to Bassai Dai. I was able to keep up without much trouble until we got to Bassai Dai where I was lost. I felt pretty good after I did Tekki Shodan since Sensei said that it looked much better than before. He said I was much more relaxed and I didn’t muscle through it like I used to do.

After the katas, Sensei had us do something a little different. We spent the rest of the class working on advance one-step sparring. The attacks were the same, but the counters were different.

The first group of counters was using different moves than the normal reverse punch or front punch. I used hammer fist as my counter. My opponent moved forward with jodan oi-ziki and I moved to the outside and countered with a tetsui to jodan. This move was pretty effective since my opponent would still be moving forward as my hammer fist would strike his face. My opponent used a similar approach and countered with a ridge hand.

Next, we worked on countering with only one kick. We didn’t need to block, just get out of the way and kick. For this, my opponent would attack with a front punch to the head. I would move to the outside and hit him with a front snap kick to the stomach. Moving to the inside would allow for a solid low kick to the groin area.

We then worked on countering with two kicks. This was a little more difficult for me since my roundhouse kick is not the best. My opponent would attack with a front snap kick, I would then counter with a round house to his stomach and a low front snap kick to his groin from behind.

Above is just a few examples of what we did. There are so many different counters that can be used such as knife hand block and strike to name one. One of the things that made this class work well was we did all the moves very slowly so that we could fully understand the movements instead of flying through it as full speed.

Good class!