Lots of good stuff today!

Kicks….

After the warm up, we did moving forward forward knee strike and front snap kick. Then front leg toe tag and rear leg front snap kick.

We then moved into roundhouse kicks. After watching a few of our kicks Sensei Cieplik showed us a drill to help improve our roundhouse kicks.

From a front stance, put most of your weight on your front leg and lean forward. From there, pick the back leg, straight up off the floor. This helps mobilize and strengthen the hips. From the same leaning position, we did did a roundhouse kick again straight up from the floor.

Don’t turn the hips too far…

Sensei had us do moving forward with with outward block, jab and reverse punch. When doing the outward block, Sensei told us not to open our hips too far or we will not have any hips action when doing the jab. The point is, to power in the jab will only be from the arm since the hips won’t be involved if they are already fully opened.

Partner up and move to the side…

For this drill, we stood toe to toe with our partner. From there, our partner throws a reverse punch, we shuffle up, just out of the way of the punch and throw a cutting roundhouse kick. The defending partner only needs to shuffle a short distance in order to get out of the way of the reverse punch. There was no large blocking action or jumping out of the way, just a simple shuffle just outside of the punch.

Lots of kata….

We spent the rest of the class working on kata. We did Heian 1 through Heian 5, Jion, Bassai Dai, Empi and one my favorites, Rohai.

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This was the last class of this session and Sensei Noia had us work on hitting stuff, both pads and our partners.

Partner kicks….

We started out facing our partner. From a front stance, we did three low, medium and high slow motion kicks at our partner. The first kick was to the knee, next kick to the stomach and last to the head. Sensei wanted us to use our hips to extend our kick out.

For the next drill, Sensei called a number and we did that many kicks at our partner at different heights. This was tough when the numbers got higher.

Next, one partner got a pad and the other kicked. First, a light front snap, then medium speed and medium power and after that, full speed and power. I partnered up with my son and he certainly wasn’t holding those kicks back kicking his old man today. It’s all good though, I was able to send some pretty strong kicks his way too.

Have an elbow…

We finished up working on some partner elbow strikes, We started with elbow behind, like a draw hand. Then we did front elbow strike and finished up with a twisting elbow strike. Doing this move behind feels the most powerful and natural to me.

Great way to end the session, hitting stuff is always good!

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Sensei Cieplik is really giving us a lot of kicking drills. I really need them and am more than happy to get as much kicking in as possible.

Kicks….

We started with stationary knee strike and front snap kick. Then double front snap kick. then front snap kick with front punch.

Next, we did shuffle up, front leg roundhouse, then shuffle back and do a rear leg roundhouse kick.

Kihon….

We moved forward and did a rising block, inward block, downward block and then reverse punch all with only one step forward. We did the same moving backward.

Next, we did back stance, knife hand block and then did the same with the added front snap kick and finally we added the reverse spear hand strike.

Next came, Sensei’s favorite move to watch, inward block, horse stance with elbow strike and back fist. Sensei said to make sure that each stance looks like it should, being that the horse stance needs to be a horse stance and the front stance needs to be a front stance. Also, Sensei suggested that we insert a cat stance between the different stances.

Take em down….

Next, we worked on some partner drills. We started with inward block, elbow strike and back fist but we stepped behind and threw our partner, over our knee and down to the ground. When in the horse stance behind them, use the hand that did the back fist to throw them over your leg behind them.

We finished up class with kata. Heian 1 through Heian 5, Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai.

This article was originally posted on www.shotokanplanet.org. Any reproduction on any other site is prohibited and a violation of copyright laws.