Today’s class was more about the mental than the physical aspects of Karate but sometimes, these are some of the hardest classes.

Slow motion sparring….

Classes like these really make sparring fun.  Working with good people and doing slow motion sparring makes you see the openings and mentally process them unlike when you a moving full speed.  It doesn’t matter if you get hit or not, the learning in those few minutes of this drill are worth hours, even days of training to me.

Block, punch, block, punch….

For the next drill, we did a standing strike and block drill.  For this drill, partner A punches with the left hand, then partner B blocks with the left hand and then punches with the right hand and partner A blocks with the hand they punched with.  The idea is the punching hand becomes the blocking hand then the other hand punches and you go back and forth with your partner increasing speed.  This is more of a mental drill than a physical drill and it really makes you think about what you are doing as it gets faster.  We did the same drill but while moving which made it about 10 times as hard as when we were stationary.

One step sparring but different…

We finished up working on some one step sparring but not our normal.  The idea behind this drill was to not use the standard counter attacks consisting of standard punches.  We used other attacks such as elbow strikes, knee strikes, palm heel, ridge hand and other moves not just punches.  Even though it doesn’t sound like anything hard, after doing one step sparring with standard moves it make you think outside the box.  For example, a standard punch to the face can be counted by stepping back with rising block and then a front snap kick to the groin as counter.  One of my personal favorites is, as they punch, step in with an outward block, grab their punching arm and counter with a rising elbow under their chin.

I am sure that many others would agree with me when I say that every class I have taken with Sensei Cieplik, I have learned at least one new thing or how to do something better.  Sometimes, Sensei has to tell us how to do something more than once and even if it takes years for us to “get it” he never gives up.  Today was another one of those classes where he helped us with our kicks again.

Use all six joints to kick…

After our warm, Sensei told us, in order to kick, we need to use six joints to kick.  When kicking, you need to use your ankle, knee and hip joints on both legs to perform a kick correctly.  If you leave out one of those joints the kick will not have as much power, it will stress your body and make the kick come from joints where it is not supposed to.  For example, if the stationary leg is straight at the knee joint, your hip will not extend as far as it could and your ankle will cause you to lose your balance because both of those joints will have to make up for the lack of movement in the knee.  There are any other example for each joint but the key takeaway is to use all six of them when kicking.

Basics…

For our basics, moving forward and back, we did rising block, inward block, outward block and downward block all with reverse punch. We then did outward block, job and reverse punch.  Next, we did shuffle up, front leg roundhouse kick, step down with reverse punch.  Then came shift forward and jab and shift forward with reverse punch.

Punch with some smack behind it….

The main idea here is to use loose power to make the punch more effective.  You start with your arm at your hip, angle your forearm up and then punch at a downward angle.  The angle of the forearm is about 45 degrees where our hand goes to shoulder level and then we angle it back down and hit to the solar plexus.  This allows the punch to move extremely fast and the downward motion makes it very powerful.

Kata with a tate punch….

We finished class with kata doing Heian 1 through Heian 5  and then Heian Shodan again three more time but using a tate (vertical) punch every time there was a punch the kata much like loose punch drill that did before.  Also, while doing the knife hand movements, when we did the reach with the draw hand and focused on attacking the eyes with those fingers before doing the knife hand block.

For those who have never use a tate punch, try it.  It aligns the bones on the arm and allows for a lot of power and it also minimizes the chance of rolling the wrist when punching very hard.

We started class with the normal kicking drills and then started with our basics.  We did downward block, inward block, outward block and rising block all with reverse punch.  After Sensei watched our basics, he felt that we need to spend some extra time on moving from the hips instead of leading our techniques with the upper body.

Move your legs with a salad bowl motion…

The main point behind this drill was to relax the hip and then move without standing up.  If you are sparring and you are rising up before your attack instead of relaxing your hip to move, chances are, you are going to get hit because your opponent can see your body rising up to attack.  If you drop the hip first, there will not be much action from the upper body while executing your attack.

The idea also works when you are doing basics.  As you are moving forward or backward, you are dropping the hip which will allow you to move while keeping your head at the same level instead of bobbing up and down.  This also allows for power to be made from the hips because of the retraction of the hip before moving.

This relaxation of the hip is new to me but relaxing the hip and transferring my body weight from the front leg to the back leg, which becomes the front leg, keeps the body from bobbing up and down.

Get close and kick your partner….

After that, Sensei paired Shodan and above with Kyu ranks for some partner horse stance drills.  We started facing each other in a horse stance and did front punch, double punch and front snap kick  Next, one partner pulled one knee up as high as possible to front snap kick the other partner in the stomach.  The hard part about this drill is you need to keep the knee up at all times and be close enough to your partner to put your hands on their shoulders as you are kicking..

The last resort punch….

This is a very powerful movement.  We started with the left knee on the floor and the right hand out in front.  From there, we stepped long into a punch, touching our partner with our right hand near their shoulder as we reach them and then punching them with our left hand.  The idea is to cover your entire body length when stepping into a last resort punch and using their body to help you keep your balance and keep you from falling forward.

Do your kata but make sure you do all of them…

We spent the rest of the class working on kata.  Sensei had us start with Heian Shodan and continue on our own to Heian Godan without stopping.  Sensei said, you should always do all five of the Heian katas whenever you do them.  We then did Tekki shodan twice and then ended class with Kanku Dai.