I often have a hard time with sparring but earlier  today, while I was visiting my chiropractor, he gave me some good advice.  He told me that once I learn to really let go and relax, I will improve a huge amount.  He had me standing in his office doing a front stance with reverse punch and after a couple of them, I was really able to relax and not think about what I was doing.  When I cleared my head and just did the move, without analyzing it, my speed and power went up like never before.  It was really enlightening and I was able to apply what he said to my sparring drills, although my wife didn’t seem to care for my new found speed.

We started off with our pads and did a warm up doing punching and kicking drills back and forth.  We then got to work on attack and counter and during those drills I was able to test my punching speed.  My wife and I couldn’t believe how fast my punch was moving.  It was as if I had new hands or something.  I did notice a difference in left and right hand speed though.  My left hand seems much faster and more accurate then my right but I am sure that I can get them close to even with some hard work.

Next, we worked on some one-step sparring drills but with a twist.  With the normal one-step moves, we counter with punches most of the time but today, Sensei Noia had us use different counter attacks.

We started with hammer fist first.  It was interesting doing moves that we normally do not work with and it made for some interesting counter attacks.  We also changed partners each time so that we had to work with different people and different attacks.  For the most part, I felt that I was doing well until my friend Robert threw a mawashi geri and could have taken my head off if he didn’t have such good control.  Instead of me moving to right side out of the way of his kick, I moved right into it.  I was able to stop his foot with my hand but if he didn’t slow his kick down to almost nothing, I would have been laying on the floor.

We then did more one-step but using knife hand and elbow strike in place of the hammer fist.  With the exception of a hard yoko kekomi geri to my right forearm and a solid elbow to my chest, it went pretty well.

It was a good class and I am feeling more confident about my sparring and my one-step than I have in the past.

We did a warm up and then moved right into some kicking drills.

We started with some balance work.  Sensei Noia had us stand on a foam pad and hold on knee up in the air for 30 seconds or so on each leg.  My balance was really off for some reason, maybe it’s a sinus infection or something, but I was able to keep me knee up without too much wiggling around.  Next, we stood on the pad and did a bunch of front snap kicks without putting our foot down.  The front snap kicks were no easy task but then things got much harder.  We did front snap kick, side thrust kick and front snap kick all without touching the floor and while still standing on the pad.  I could not hold my balance at all.  After we finished those groups of kicks, Sensei had us do 10 roundhouse kicks, still on the pad and without touching the floor.

After that, we stood the pad on it’s side and did a front snap kick, stepped down over the pad into a front stance, front snap kicked again and then stepped back into a front stance.  The idea was to kick over the pad and also step over it without knocking it over.  After that came front snap kick, side thrust kick to the front and then front snap kick all over the pad.

We finished up with some kata.  We went out in groups and did our own rank kata.  I still need to tuck my butt under but hopefully that will improve with some more time.