Sensei Noia gave us a wide range of drills today along with some more Nijushiho training.  We also did my favorite warm up doing kata which always makes it a good class for me.

We started with one of my favorite warm ups today which is doing kata to get the Karate juices flowing.  He had us do Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan, Heian Sandan and Heian Yondan.

Get the basics done….

We moved in to basics next doing, moving forward and back with the following:

• Front punch
• Reverse punch
• Front snap kick with front punch
• Triple punch
• Front leg kick with front punch
• Front snap kick
• Side thrust kick with front snap kick

Partner up

After getting a partner, we stood in front of each other in a horse stance and did the following moves.  One partner did jodan (head) front punch and the other did rising block.  Next was chudan (stomach) front punch and inward block and then gedan (low) punch and downward block.

Next came many kicks.  Still with our partner we did alternating front snap kicks, then spinning back kicks.  Next was shuffle up, front leg front snap kick followed with side thrust kick rear leg.  After that, front snap kick, side thrust, round house, spinning back kick.  We finished up with front snap kick and spinning back kick. Each partner alternated after each kick for all the drills except the last where one of us did both kicks and then our partner did theirs.

Nijushiho…..

For the rest of the class we worked on Nijushiho. We did sections of the kata many times and then did the entire kata.  I really like this kata but I just wish I could remember the moves.  Oddly enough, I can remember 54 moves from Gojushiho Sho, but the 24 moves from Nijushiho is escaping me today.

There are some classes where Sensei Cieplik has us spend most of the time on one or a few techniques.  Today was one of those days and improving our roundhouse kick was the technique of choice.

Get the kihon over with…..

We started out doing moving forward and backward with one step doing six techniques in the following order: Front stance, rising block, inward block, outward block, downward block, back stance, knife hand block and front stance with reverse punch.

And the kicks begin….

Sensei had us do start with shuffle up, front leg roundhouse kick followed with shuffle back, rear leg roundhouse kick set down in front, then shuffle up front leg roundhouse kick with shuffle back rear leg roundhouse kick with the other leg.  For some reason, this drill really drains me but that could be caused my lack of roundhouse kicking skills.

Very soon after Sensei watched us do the drill above, he had us get a partner and a pad.  From there, one partner stood sideways and the other partner stood in a front stance in front of them.  The partner, in the front stance, brought their kicking leg up to the side, pivoted on the stationary leg and hit the pad with the knee not the leg.  This is a horizontal knee strike which is a regular knee strike turned on its side.  The key to this drill is to use the motion of the hip to throw the knee and not use the shoulders or upper body to do it.  One thing that I found was to tighten up my abdominal muscles, push my hips under and the knot of my belt forward throwing the knee.  If the hips are not under and forward the upper body takes over and the movement comes from the shoulders.

We did a similar drill but this time we did the full kick and extended the lower leg.  The idea was to still use the hips and do the knee strike but then to let the stoppage of the knee extend the lower leg and execute the kick.  The next drill was to have our partner stand sideways again and we did the horizontal knee strike to their stomach but then leg the lower leg extend around the side and our foot behind them at the end.

Kata for everyone….

Sensei had all of the black belts move off the side while he took some of the lower belts through their kata..  He then called the black belts out for a kata and then alternated both low belts and high belts for a couple more katas.

I have had to miss a couple of classes because I was sick one week and my wife was sick another but luckily, I didn’t miss the class we did today.  Sensei Noia shared a new kata with us today and it is called Nijushiho.  This is a kata that I have wanted to learn for some time but I was having a tough time trying to learn it from a book or videos on the internet.  This kata translates to 24 moves but even though it is a short kata, it has some moves that require good coordination and varied timing.

Nijushiho kihon and kata…

For the first 15 minutes of class, after our warm up, we worked on some of the kihon (basics) of Nijushiho.  The first group of moves was from a horse stance, we reached with our right hand, threw a side thrust kick while pulling the our right hand (fist) to our right hip then stepped back down and into the horse stance and threw a left handed reverse punch.  We did the same movement but to the left side.  We did the next drill from a horse stance again but this time we did a rising elbow strike to the side, then shifted in, staying in a horse stance and did a cross body type punch with both hands, one hand high and one low, then shifted back and did a downward block.

After the kihon, we moved into the kata itself.  I really like the way that Sensei Noia teaches kata, he had us work on the first few moves and then after, we do them five times, he has us move on to the next few moves.  After we get through about a dozen moves, he has us start at the first move and go all the way to the last move that he showed us.  When doing this type of training, we end up doing many moves but I really do not notice it because the pace is slow enough to learn but fast enough to get a great workout.

I like this kata a lot and I hope that we spend a lot more time working on it in the future.