Sensei Noia gave us a hard class today.  I don’t remember sparring this much in a long time.

Anchorman….

We started class with a few minutes of free sparring to get warmed up.  Next, we lined up for Anchorman.  Oddly enough, I was more at ease this time than in the past.  I just went up there and sparred.  I got hit a few times and end up hitting a few but this just felt much easier than before.  The group of students in my line was all experienced black belts and even though they are all really good, I didn’t feel out of place for a welcome change.  Maybe they were all being nice to me for some reason.

Sparring drills…

For our next drill, we worked on specific techniques.  We started with a drill where we could do any attacks but we could only score with a head high kick.  Needless to say, unless my partner or I was going to lay down on the floor, neither of us were going to score.  Since we tied, we each had to do 15 pushups.  For our next drill, we needed a chudan high kick to score.  Oddly enough, neither my partner or I scored so we ended up doing 15 more pushups.

Out of the ordinary sparring drills….

We spent some time on three really interesting drills, one was a close distance drill, another drill with our arms tied up and the last drill holding on to our partners front hand.

For the first drill, we stood within arms reach of each other and had to spar from the distance for the entire time of the drill.  Being that close didn’t me too many kicking options but the front hand jab was really flying both to my partners body and head.  We also took advantage of the short distance and returned the favor.

For the first drill, one of us had our arms tied with our belt at the elbows.  We could block with either hand but we had to stay in place.  Both my partner and I hit each other but some of the blocks were effective.

The last drill was where we grabbed our partners hand, left to left and had to spar from that distance.  We could use our left hand for blocking but we could not attack with it.  Fighting in the close range was not easy by any means but pretty cool.  There was not much that could be done without getting hit back since creating an opening on your partner created an opening for him.

Kata….

After close to 50 minutes of constant sparring, we did kata.  Sensei sent us out for three kata’s.  The 1st kyu’s did a Heian kata, Sensei told me to do Heian Godan, then we did Bassai Dai and we finished up with Jion.  I felt like my kata was not my best because my legs were shaking and I had almost no breath left but I was able to finish all of them without falling down.

It was a great class but there seems to be a trend where the classes are getting hard and harder, which is good.

Sensei Cieplik shared some Karate details with us tonight.

Use the hips….

Sensei had us work on a different kicking drill tonight.  He had us stand in a ready stance, put on foot forward, much like a cat stance, push our hips forward and tighten our glutes as if we were doing a front snap kick.  Next, we pulled our leg back and out to the side and bumped our hip out about an inch on side of the leg that we were holding out.  Next, we put our foot behind us, straightened our leg and pressed that heal down as if we were doing a back kick.  Next we brought our foot to the front but our hip over and pivoted our back foot as if we were doing a roundhouse kick.  We finished up by bringing our foot back to the front just like the first move we did above.  The idea behind this was to help us understand the feeling of what our hips should be doing on the various kicks.

Work those stances….

Sensei gave us a drill to help us work on our stances.  We started in the ready stance, moved into a cat stance, put the same leg behind us, then moved back into a cat stance, put the same leg in front, back into the cat stance, repeat the two moves above and then bring the leg back into a cat stance once more and step out to the side into a horse stance.  The concept behind this was to keep our weight loaded on the support leg while moving into the stances and when we put the leg behind, we pushed with it and when we put the leg in front, we pulled with it.  Another very important part is that is helps us maintain posture and keep us from moving with the shoulders instead of the hips.  Sensei suggested that we do this movement a little each day and next week he is going to give us another drill that helps our back stances.

Another drill, started in a front stance, we then push backward off the front leg and as the back foot hits the ground and the leg straightens, we throw a jab.  This creates a feeling of scary power.  And even though you are moving back the power feels as if it is projected forward.

Partner up and use that draw hand….

Sensei had us get a partner to work in some draw hand drills.  Sensei explained that most people will tense up if someone pulls in their front hand.  If they tense up, you can use that against them and pull yourself and your punch into them.  I stood in front of my partner with his front hand out, I then pulled in his hand with my front hand in which he tensed up, which becomes my draw hand, and then shifted in and reverse punched them.  I used his reflex action against him to make my punch stronger and faster.  I don’t recall ever doing a drill where I actually was able to us my draw hand to pull someone into my punch and this feeling was different than anything I recall doing in the past.

We finished up class with some kata.  Sensei had us do Heian Shodan using the feeling that we had from the drill above when we had a move that needed the draw hand.  This adds another dimension to a simple kata.  We then did Jion and Bassai Dai to finish up for the higher belts and the lower belts worked on H1-H5.