For the last Tuesday class of 2011, Sensei Noia gave us class full of kata, basics and good, old fashioned pad hitting.  Hitting stuff almost always makes for a fun class and today was a fun class.

Warm up with kata….

We started out doing Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan, Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan and Heian Godan.  I always enjoy this type of warm up.

After the kata warm up, we moved on to basics.  We started by moving forward and back across the dojo with 5 different stances.  Those stances included, front stance, back stance, horse stance, cat stance and cross leg stance.  This was stance only drill with no arm movements.  Next, we did the same stances but added block and reverse punch.  We followed that with one count with stances and two techniques of our choice.   For example, we would do a front stance with a rising block and a back stance with knife hand block.

Hit the pads…

We spent the rest of the class hitting the pads.  The idea was to hit the pads without using a punch.  For the first drill, we could open hand techniques such as knife hand, ridge hand, back hand and palm strike.  The next drill let us use hammer fist and back fist.  For the last drill, we could use our elbows both horizontal or vertical and draw hand strike behind us.

Whenever we do drills like these, not using the common techniques, it always makes for an interesting class.

Sensei Cieplik has been telling us for many years, “from hip!”  Today, we had another taste of the type of power we can make when we use our  hips when we do our techniques.  Making power with a minimum of body movement is easy if we use our lower body instead of our shoulders and chest.  More about this below….

Start out with many kicks…

We started with front leg front snap and  rear leg front snap kick.  Moving forward with double front snap kick.  Moving forward with double front snap kick and then with double roundhouse kick.

We followed up with step across in a horse stance then with side snap kick, side thrust kick and both with one step.

We moved in to basics next with inward block, elbow strike and back fist and did this a number of times.

For the next drill, one of my favorites, we started in a front stance, loaded up our weight to the back leg and then reverse punched.  This movement always feels so strong because you have to use the hips and the entire body to do it.

The next drill was, from front stance, stationary jab and then step in with front punch.  Doing the jab first makes us throw our entire body into the front punch.  I am not sure how it looks but I would guess it is one of the strong moves in Shotokan.

Get a partner and hit them with your hip….

The the next drill, we partnered up.  We stood in a front stance and put one fist on a pad.  We pulled the hip back, same side as the fist, and used the hip and leg to push our arm forward.  We followed that drill with the same move but using a reverse punch instead.  The idea with both of these drills is to get under your partner by dropping your hips and using the salad bowl motion that Sensei often talks about.  We are using our locked arm as a push bar and our hips and lower body to move our partner.  We didn’t have to throw a single punch to move our partner back just by using our hips.  This is a concept that always sounds easy to do but is hard to actually perform.

Sensei always says this type of movement is like pushing a car in the snow.  You cannot push the car from your upper body, you need to drop your hips and get under it to push it forward.

There is a message that Sensei Cieplik often tells us about how the higher belts often share their knowledge with lower at some point.  He shares this information with us so that we can make it easier for those that follow us to reach their ranks and I know that many higher ranks have helped me get to Shodan.

Get those kicks in…..

After the warm up, we did stationary knee strike with front snap kick.  Then front leg front snap kick with rear leg front snap kick.  Next, we did front leg front snap kick, rear leg front snap with triple punch.  We finsihed up our kicks with front leg roundhouse kick and rear leg roundhouse kick.

Standard kihon…..

Moving forward back doing rising block, inward block and downward block all with reverse punch.  We did outward block with jab and reverse punch next.   We finished up the kihon with front stance with inward block, horse stance with elbow strike and back fist.

Share high belt knowledge with lower belts….

For the rest of class, Sensei had all of the black belts line up at the front of the dojo and he gave each one of us a lower rank to work to help them improve a basic movement, stepping forward with front punch.  Sensei paired me up with a very good purple belt.  She always works very hard in class and there was little for me to have her improve on this movement with the exception of having her punch through me to an imaginary target behind me and to punch more from her lower body.  Her punches started out with enough power to sting but after just a few minutes, she was punching really hard and I was glad to have the pad on my stomach.  I am confident that if she punched someone in the face or solar plexus, she would drop them.

Even though I have been helping out with classes for almost five years now, it always makes me feel good when I can share something that my Sensei shared with me and help someone improve.