After our warm up, Sensei Cieplik had us work on knee strike with front snap kick.

Kihon details…..

We started with downward block and reverse punch.  The detail here was to follow the pull hand arm to the wrist then speed up the blocking hand and pull the draw hand back.  The idea is someone someone might have grabbed your wrist and you are breaking away by striking their hand and pulling hard and fast.

Next came, back stance with knife hand block, front snap kick and spear hand.  Sensei wanted us to escalate the intensity of  each movement.  The knife hand block is strong, the front snap kick is stronger and the spear hand is strongest.  Also when doing the spear hand, think of hitting them with your shin.  Scare then with your footwork!!!

When blocking or reaching the front hand should be as strong as blocking hand.  You can also use the front hand to block too.

Next, we did horse stance with side thrust kick and then side snap kick.  We then did horse stance with side snap kick and side thrust kick combination.

Kata….

We spent a lot of time working kata.  We did six Heian Shodan’s.  Sensei wanted to see if we were doing the downward blocks like in the previous kihon drills.  Next came three Heian Nidan’s, three Heian Sandan’s, two Heian Yondan’s, one Heian Godan and two Bassai Dai’s.

One point that Sensei made when doing Heian Sandan is to practice the kata but use your hands to block low on the last few movements.  Having your hands down makes the stance at least and inch lower.  Sensei mentioned that using five pound dumbbells might be a good training aid.

The advice that Sensei gave me when I was doing Bassai Dai was LOWER DOUG!!!

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Sensei Brien has been upping the intensity to help us prepare for our belt exams and today was another really tough class.

Double moves for each step….

Sensei had us start with basics but with each count he wanted us to increase our intensity.  To make the drill harder, Sensei also had us do double moves with each count.  For example, we took one step, did downward block with reverse punch and downward block with reverse punch again.  We did the same drills, all with double moves with rising block, inward block, outward block, double front snap kick, double roundhouse and knife hand block with front snap kick and nukite.

Partner kicks and fighting one step sparring….

For the next drill, we got a partner and did standing front snap kick and side thrust kicks.  The idea was to stand upright and not lean when doing the side thrust kicks.  We stood right next to our partner with our arm on their shoulder to keep us as upright as possible.

For the nest drill, we did one step sparring but with a twist.  instead of standing in a the normal front stance for attacker and ready stance for defender, we started in a fighting stance.  This makes the drills much more realistic than doing them the other way in my opinion.  We did all six attacks; Front punch to head and stomach, front snap kick, side thrust kick, roundhouse kick and spinning back kick.

Mind before movement….

We finished up class with something really neat.  We did kata but with some different mental focus then usual.  Sensei had us do our first kata with fierce intensity and relaxed form.  The idea was to use knock down all out power.

For the second kata, he had us pay extra attention to our draw hand. Before each move, Sensei wanted us to focus on the draw hand exclusively.

For the next kata, we used loose or relaxed muscles to focus on speed.

The forth kata really made me think.  Before doing each move, we were to say the next stance in our head before we moved.  The idea was to focus totally on the stance and I noticed a huge improvement in my stances just by thinking about them.

For the final kata, Sensei had us focus on all of the above.  This was pretty tough but Sensei said that he saw a huge improvement in everyones kata.

It was a great class but the kata at the end really wiped me out.

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