Being that this was the last Monday class of 2009, Sensei Brien gave us something fun to work on today.

Mirror image kata…

I never spent much time thinking about doing kata in mirror image even though I often do Heian Shodan and Heian Nidan that way when I help out with the various classes each week.

All the Hiena kata”s didn’t really cause many issues for me but doing Bassai Dai in mirror was really tough.   I really head to think about each move before I did it but I eventually made it through the entire kata.  This really gave the kata a different feeling because I had to actually think about each move before I did it instead of just doing each kata without thinking.

This was a great class and I hope we do this a little more often.

This is that last class of 2009 with Sensei Cieplik.  He pulled out some really good drills for us to work on today.

Homework….

We spent a lot of time doing knee strikes with front snap kick.  Sensei gave me a homework drill to work on.  I need to bring my foot up from the floor, like a knee strike but as high as possible.  I also need to do a knee strike, drop the knee, then bring the knee back up and kick.  I keep dropping my knee and not bringing it back up after the knee strike.

Get a partner…..

Sensei had us get a partner and work on the drill from above where one partner holds their hand up in front of the other, we did a knee strike and then a front snap kick making sure that our knee touches their hand for both movements.

The next drill was a side by side, side thrust kick.  For this, we stood next to our parnter, both facing forward.  From their one partner held on to the other partners shoulder and did a side thrust kick across their partners body.  It was good drill but certainly not easy for me.

Next, our partner held a pad, we stood in a front stance and did a roundhouse kick.  The twist on this drill was that we had to kick downward.  For example, we brought the back leg around, kept the knee up and then roundhouse kicked at a downward angle over the pad.

We then did a cutting kick.  From a front stance, we sneak the back foot forward almost even with the stationary foot and then, front the floor, we front snap kick into the lower part of the abdomen.  If your hand is out in front of you, chance are the person you are kicking will not see the kick coming because of the angle of the kick.  We also did this drill with a roundhouse kick.

The next drill was a self defense drill.  For this drill, we stood upright and our partner was in a front stance.  Our partner stepped forward and front punched while we stepped back into a square stance and blocked their punch with our elbow and jabbed our fingers in their eyes.  The elbow deflected their punch off center and made them miss.  The key to this movement is to jab the fingers to the center of their face and use the elbow to deflect the punch.  If the movement is off center, you will have to use your muscles to block the punch instead of just deflecting it easily.

Last kata of the year, in this class….

Sensei had us do Heian Shodan to cool and then Kanku Dai to finish out the class.  Sensei mentioned that this was the last kata of this class for the year but hopefully not the last kata we will do for the year.

After exams are over, most of my Sensei’s have us work on some different drills or other fun stuff that we don’t often work on.  Today Sensei Noia had us work on one of my favorite classes were we hit stuff hard!

Get a willing partner and pad….

We got one or two foam pads and started hitting each other.  I always try to use only one pad to help toughen up my abs and my partner we certainly giving me a workout.  There were a couple of times that I thought my partner was going to loosen some of my teeth.

We did standing straight punch, reverse punch, elbow strike, knife hand strike, kage zuki (like a hook punch) and one of my personal favorites, the backfist.  I never really felt how much power the back fist could generate until today.  Twisting the hip and letting that fist fly was an awesome feeling.

This was an excellent class, even though I was really afterward.