This class was different.  Different related to some drills that I never remember doing before.

We started out doing Heian Shodan through Heian Godan and Tekki Shodan and then back down again for a 12 kata warmup.  This we have done before.

Different drill…

After the kata warm up we did the “different” drill.  We started standing in a ready stance, from there we punched to the front with the left hand, then pivoted on our heels to the right and did an outward block similar to the moves from from Bassai Dai. We did the same punching with the right hand and then pivoting to the left.

We did the same drill with the punches but we did rising block, inward block, outward block, downward block and knife hand block.  I have a feeling that this was more of a hip opening drill, at least for me, but I will say it was a mental drill too.

We finished up doing kata, starting with Jion, Bassai Dai, Empi, Kanku Dai and ending with Gojushiho Sho.

We started with the normal kicking warm up doing all of the following moves while stationary:

• Front snap kick to the front
• Front leg front snap kick with rear leg front snap kick
• Front snap kick, side thrust kick to the side, and back kick to the rear
• Knee strike, front snap kick, knee strike, front snap kick
• Front snap kick, side thrust kick to the side, back kick, roundhouse kick to the front, hook kick to the front and front snap kick to the front

Shift in and jab with a salad bowl motion….

After our warm up, we worked on a shifting with jab drill.  When shifting forward, the idea is to move in a salad bowl (I really think Sensei Cieplik should patent this term) motion and drop down before the jab to get tension in the legs and then drive forward with the body letting the jab hand go forward and up into your target.  That dropping motion of the hip creates a great amount of power and lets the jab hand fly out very quickly.

Help your partner….

For the rest of class, we partnered up.  Sensei had all of the black belts and above on one side of the dojo and had a Kyu rank partner up with each one.  We started out doing one-step with green belts and above and three-step sparring with blue belts and below.

We started out in a group doing Jion with the 3rd kyu and after doing it twice, Sensei sent each of the 3rd Kyu with a Shodan or higher to help them work out the details of their kata.  One of the things that I enjoy most about working with others is that I also learn something about the kata that we are working on.  When sharing what I have learned with someone else, I have a moment to realize how I am doing the moves and how they can be applied.  It also makes me slow down and stop doing the movements automatically.  Doing Jion is always good kata to work with others on because it is all basic movements done in a sequence that flow together fairly well and can be broken up into sections.

As always, another excellent class came to an end all too soon.

Move from stance to stance very fast…

We started in a horse stance, then stepped left into a front stance, then back to horse stance and then into right front stance.  We did a similar drill next, starting in horse stance, then into left foot forward front stance, then right foot forward front stance, then back to horse stance, then into left foot forward back stance and then into right foot forward back stance.  There we a couple more of these types of drills with some more arm techniques but the stances we the same or at least similar.  The idea behind these drills is to move between stances as fast as possible while still having the stances look like what they are supposed to look like.  Moving really fast and having a back stance look like a horse stance is not the goal here.

Counting kata…

Sensei Noia started our kata work with Kanku Dai.  For the first kata, Sensei counted out each move for us going slow and controlled.  For the next kata, we did then full power and speed while still moving to the count but Sensei would stop us and have us repeat certain movements based on what he saw..

Next, we worked on Gojushiho Sho, slow and counted the first time.  After that, Sensei had us pay extra attention to the turns from front stance into horse stance.  The speed of those turns should be similar to the speed in the turns from the last rising block to downward block in front stance like Heian Shodan or also like the turn from front punch to the back stance with high and low block in back stance in Jion.

We then finished up class with another kata at full speed and power on our own.