Sensei Cieplik is really working on preparing everyone who is testing for their exam.  He is really helping us focus on the little details that make big differences.

Keep the knee up while kicking….

We started with the normal warm up then we spent some extra time on our front snap kick.  Sensei had us hold our legs behind the knee and extend our lower leg.   the idea was to get the feeling of keeping the knee up while kicking and having our knee act like a hinge.

After that drill, we worked on knee strike with front snap kick but making sure that the knee stays up when kicking.

More kihon….

After a few rising blocks with reverse punch, Sensei had us block a little different.  Instead of having our elbow in front of us, he wants us to put our elbow at angle and a bit more forward.  The idea is to use the lats muscles instead of the shoulder muscles when blocking.  Also, when blocking like this, the back leg is almost straight but not totally straight.   It has to stay bent if you need to reverse punch after the block.

Next came back stance with knife hand block.  After that came the same drill but we added the front snap kick.  One detail that Sensei gave us here was to keep our kick inside our back hand closer to the middle of our body instead of outside our body.

Next, we worked on horse stance with side thrust kick and side snap kick.  Sensei made the point when doing side snap kick, we need to kick from the floor and not chamber first from our knee.

Sensei made some excellent points tonight:

Doing moves forward is learning and doing them backward is for real.

If you focus on the result, the actions with be perfect.

It takes 30 years to learn Karate…

10 years to relax, 10 years to adapt your body to the movements and 10 years to move naturally.

This is one point that I really never though of until today, when switching feet, keep your eyes up.  Looking down means failure.

A mother bear will fight a full gown grizzly bear to protect her cub.

Kata….

We finished up class with all the Heian Katas, Tekki Shodan, Bassai Dai and some black belt katas for the Shodan’s and above.

A point that Sensei made when doing kata is:  Do kata with the intention of hitting someone, if you cannot commit to hitting someone, your kata will always be lacking.

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Another tough class from Sensei Noia.

We started in a horse stance, then we pivoted to the left with with a right hand reverse punch, then we pivoted to the right with a left reverse punch, then back to a horse stance with double punch and then shuffle to the left and punch, then repeat.

Step forward with block and reverse punch, step again with another block and reverse punch, then turn, move back with a block and reverse punch, then back again with reverse punch.

We spent most of the class working on basics like those above but Sensei did manage to have us get in a few katas just before class ended.

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I really enjoy Sensei Cieplik’s classes.  The only problem is that he shares so much of his knowledge in that 90 minutes, I have a very hard time remembering everything from class.  My wife made as comment to him one day, that it is hard to remember everything that he shares with us and he said that if you are ready to learn it, you will remember it.  That statement is so true and I am glad I remembered it.

Lots of kicking kihon….

After the warm up, we did front snap kick, kept the knee of the kicking leg up, turned 90 degrees to the left, then step back with kicking leg and set it down.  We did this all the way around and in both directions.  The idea is to turn from the hips and not the shoulders.  Next came the same drill but with reverse punch after we set our foot down.

Next, we stood with both feet together and touching.  We did a side snap kick and put feet back together, touching again.  This is a balance drill.  If the side snap kick is too hard to do, you can substitute a front snap kick to the side if needed.  This drill sounds easy but if you didn’t take class, give it a try, it’s a lot harder then it sounds.  The kick starts from the floor and ends back on the floor.

Next came back stance, with knife hand block.  We followed that with the same drill but added the kick.

Next, we started in a horse stance, stepped across and did a side thrust kick.  We followed that with horse stance, step across with side snap kick.  When doing side snap kick, get balance and kick from the floor.  Do not chamber the kick first (like from the drill above).

Scare your partner….

For the next drill, we paired up.  This is somewhat hard to explain but I will do my best.  We stood in front of our partner, then did and outside in front snap kick to the stomach, when then stepped through after the kick and made our partner back up with our intention.   The idea is that your are moving forward after the kick and pressuring your partner to move back and basically run away backwards.  If the kick didn’t stop them, you could follow up with another attack but this drill was meant to show the intention of what could come next.

Kata….

We started with Heian Shodan.  Sensei had us do it again but then after each punch, we took two steps forward.  Much like what we did in the partner drill above.  For example, from the first move, the downward, we stepped into the front punch and then took two steps forward.

We did all the Heian katas except for Heian Godan.  We also did Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai.  Sensei gave me a good tip for Jion.  When doing the moves with the outward block and stepping front punch, he told me to lean back to keep my back heel from popping off the floor.  This little fix really makes my Jion look so much better.

It was an awesome class.

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