Sensei Brien had us start out in a horse stance with many punches and blocks to get warmed up.

Functional kata basics….

I cannot really describe this any better way than I did above.  Sensei had us do various moves from various kata’s.  For example, we worked on:

• Back stance with front snap kick and spear hand.
• Front stance with side snap kick and come down into back stance with knife hand block.
• Standing with side snap kick, then come down with elbow strike.
• Horse stance with crescent kick and elbow strike.
• Same move as above but stop a inch short of the elbow strike to engage our core better.

Some kicking and more kata parts….

After a short water break, we got a partner and worked on a really cool kicking drill.  We stood next to our partner and gabbed hands.  From there, one partner did a side snap kick under our partners arm, then a side thrust kick and then a hook kick.  This really worked the hips.

For our next drills, we did parts of our kata.  We stayed with our partner and did yama zuki (u-punch) across the floor.  We also worked on the low sweeping block after the third yama zuki.  Another drill was from the double inward scissor strike and shift with front punch.   We finished up with an entire kata.

I really enjoy these functional classes and hope that we continue to do them even after examinations are over.

I lost track of how many times I have said this in the past but I keep saying it so that, maybe one day, I will not be so surprised.  After all this time, I finally understand something that I have been doing wrong for over five years.

Keep those hands at your side….

Sensei Cieplik today me something today that I have been told many times but not in this way.  He said that when we are kicking pretend that you are holding a 10 pound dumbbell in each hand, 25 pound dumbbells for us big boys, and keeping our hands at our sides as we kick.  Maybe this came easily to others but just hearing it explained this way made a huge difference.  Now the key to this is my hips are pointed forward instead of one hip, the kicking leg hip, pointing at the ground.

Sensei also mentioned that a good drill is to actually do this movement with dumbbells to help get the feeling of keeping your center and pushing your hips forward.

Back stance on the heel….

Sensei had us spend a lot of time working on our back with extra attention to turning on our heels.  We spent a good amount of time trying to keep our heels in the right position as we moved forward and backward.  One thing I found from these drills is that I really need to spend more time on stretching my heels.

Kata specific….

Sensei had us start with Heian Shodan through Heian Godan, then Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai.

Sensei watched each group of us work on our belt specific kata.  I had some one on one instruction from Sensei on areas that I need to work on in Bassai Dai.

• After doing the tate shuto, I need to use my hips to throw the standing front punch.  Don’t twist the hips, engage the core and squeeze the hips up with the punch.
• On the last block of the movement above, hold the left arm strong and then move into the back stance with knife hand block as if someone is putting pressure on that arm from the outside.  The key is to keep that movement strong and slide in with the back stance knife hand block.
• When doing my back stances, especially after the side thrust kick, focus on the back hand (elbow strike) and make sure that my weight is behind me.
• The movement right before the side thrust kick is a block and grab.

Lots of stuff for me to work on but all good stuff.

Sensei Noia has been working to get us ready for our exams and todays class was good example.

Work those stances….

We started out moving forward across the dojo twisting our hips.  For example, we moved forward and twisted or snapped our hips into a blocking stance.  After that, we moved forward doing both a blocking stance and then a punching stance being sure to snap our hips as sharply as possible.

After that, Sensei had us work on stationary stances.  We started in a horse stance doing punches and blocks.  After that we turned our feet out into a square stance and did more punches and blocks.

One of the more different movements that we did was horse stance with double front punch, double outward block and double downward block to the sides, much like in Jion.  Sensei came around to each one of us to make sure that our stances were solid buy pushing on our shoulders or hips.  If you weren’t squeezing the floor, you were falling over.

Pieces and parts of kata…

We spent the rest of the class working on parts of Bassai Dai.  We started with the first seven moves which included a lot of hip rotation and extra focus on those parts.  The snapping of the hips from open to closed and closed to open we a good part of the drill.  After that, we moved on to the punch and block, punch and block moves.  Again, the key is to get the hips to do the work.  We then did the moving forward, triple back stance with knife hand block movements and the moving backward backstance with knife hand.  Next came the reach and grab, then the side thrust kick followed up with the backstance knife hand block.  We continued to do this for entire kata, doing two, three or four groups of movements.

Every so often, Sensei would have us do groups of groups of movements too.  This entire drill was extremely hard and taxing for me but it really made me look at my kata in a different way.  We ended class with one all out, full power Bassai Dai.

Excellent class but really hard and helpful too.