Sensei Brien taught a really interesting class tonight.  This was a bit different but in a really good way.

One interesting point that he made was to attack with a defensive mind and defend with and attacking mind.

Stand up and punch…

We started our first drill standing upright and punching.  Sensei told us to bend our knees a little and as we punched, we needed to tighten our abdominal muscles and push our hips forward to get maximum power out of the punches.

Kick with amplitude….

When doing kicks, Sensei told us to keep the following in mind;  What if your kick misses, what if your kick is blocked or what if your leg is caught.

We started with stationary kicks to warm up our legs.  After that we did kicks moving forward and backward.  For the next drill, Sensei had us do our kick and hold our knee up before setting it down in to our front stance.  The idea was to make sure that we still had balance after the kick.

Sensei wanted us to extend our kick more forward than normal.  Instead of stopping our kicks within our balance range, he wanted us to push our foot farther out by pushing our hips forward.  This allows for more power or amplitude as he called it.  Use full power when kicking, recover by snapping the leg back and if your attacker grabs your foot or leg, pull it back hard, raise the knee up and pop him or her in the head with your hand.

Block and punch as if you have a sword in your hand….

This was interesting.  Sensei had us moving forward doing downward blocks but then he said for us to let our blocking hand extend past our knee as if we were cutting all the way through the attacker with a sword.  The added a different dimension to the movements.  It felt as if the block was unrestricted or more natural then when we stop our blocks in front of our knees.  We also did this drill with an inward block, again with an extended motion.

We also did a punching drill where we put our hand on the side of our waist as if we were holding a sword and pointing it forward.  We reached with the other hand as if to grab an attackers jacket and then stepped forward and thrust the sword forward.  This was an extremely power drill and I don’t recall ever getting that much kime out of my front punches in the past.

The main idea behind this training is to make our blocks feel as if we are using a weapon and for us to stop after going through the target completely not stopping short or halfway through.

Sensei also mentioned that we should be intense when doing the movement but loose after it is complete.  He said “be intense not tense.”   Make sure all the correct muscles lock when doing the movement but then let all the muscles loosen up so that you can move for the next movement.  If your muscles are tight all the time, it is very hard if not impossible to move and your movements will be very slow.

Sensei Brien mentioned another way to train, that Sensei Cieplik always talks about.  He said to do our kata using a bo staff or Kali sticks to do the kata with a feeling of having a weapon in your hands.

I am going to visit Home Depot to pick up some wooden oak dowels over the next few days.  If I end up missing class in the future, it is because I ended up knocking my self out doing kata with weapons in my hands.

Self defense against idiots….

We spent the last 15 minutes of class doing some self defense drills to cool down.  Today was self defense against headlocks.  For this attack, Sensei gave a few different ways to escape this hold.  One of my personal favorites is, if the person is wearing clothes, bite them in the chest.  The reason Sensei said if they are wearing clothes is you might not want to bite an attacker and break the flesh since you don’t know what they might have as far as disease.  Even making the noise like you are going to chomp them should make them loosen their hold on you.

Another escape is to hit the groin or tailbone, stop the foot and then finish up pealing their far hand off and having the other arm locked behind you, punch them in there exposed ribs.  They key here is to get them to break their initial hold and make them not want to try it again.

It was a really good class and I am looking forward to more just like it in the future.

This is one of those classes that I will remember for sometime.  It was the start of the fall session and what a start it was.  There was so much energy in this class, I cannot describe it in words but I will try.

Kicks…

We about the first third of the class working on kicking drills.  Sensei Cieplik gave me some really good advice about how I was kicking and how I should be kicking.  When doing a front snap kick, I need to bend my stationary leg more and then tighten my abs (core) and then bring the knee up and let the lower leg fly.  For the longest time, I was standing up, almost totally straight, and then kicking and leaning backwards instead of contracting my abdominal muscles and squeezing my core.  This was not allowing my kick to snap, instead it was almost a front thrust kick.  I always thought that my front snap kick was my kick but it wasn’t and now I have something to work on to do it the correct way with consistency.

Scare them with your footwork…

Sensei has shared this concept with us before but tonight, I think I am getting closer to doing what he is looking for when moving forward punch.

Sensei has often told us to throw the front leg out in in front and do a shin clash.  This concept has eluded me for some time, a long time I guess, and I think the key to this movement is to make sure that you throw the front leg out but also push forward with the hips and tuck the butt under.  For most, this might be Karate 101, but the amount of tucking and pushing the leg forward is very subtle but it makes the difference between a good punch and a great punch.  That little motion makes the movement feel so much different and much more powerful.  Also, tucking the butt under and pushing the hips forward ever so slightly keeps the arch out of the lower back that I know have when I try to force my movements without pushing the hips forward.

One of the drills that we used to get the feeling for this movement was to put our weight on one leg and bend the knee of that leg and then reaching out with the other foot in a long cat stance, then push forward, using the back leg while pushing the hips under and forward.

Sweep them with your knee…

For our next drill Sensei had us get a partner.  One partner stood in a front stance with their left leg forward.  We then stepped in with our right foot on the outside of their left foot and then put our right knee in the inside of their left knee.  From that position, after our foot was planted next to theirs, we turned our knee out to the right and put that force on their knee which makes them fall over to the side.  Very little force is needed for this drill and just turning our knee out can easily topple someone much larger than yourself.

Kata…

We spent the rest of the class working on kata.  We did Heian Shodan but with extra attention to the shin clash on each punching movement.  From there we did Heian 2 through Heian 5, Tekki Shodan, Jion, Bassai Dai and Kanku Dai.  Sensei counted out each move of the kata for us, explaining little details along the way, which I really enjoy when doing kata.

We had some special visitors today.  Sensei Santos came by to say hello, Sensei Renner was there help out and one of my Sensei’s, that I have trained under from the beginning, Sensei Plocharczyk, was there taking class with us.  It meant for a very high energy class, at least for me and a few others that I talked to afterward.

Sensei Noia gave us a continuation of last Tuesday’s class.

Laps and kata….

Like last week, we did a lap around the dojo and then did a kata.  We started with Heian shodan all the way to Heian Godan, then Tekki Shodan and then our own kata.  I ended up doing Jion since I worked on Bassai Dai the day before.

After the first few laps my legs are spent and I am panting like a dog but I made it through all sever katas and all seven laps.

One-step sparring….

Sensei had us work on one-step sparring but this week he told us to start our attacks with the right foot forward.  We almost always start with our left foot forward so this made me pause a little longer before being attacked.

I think this something that we should practice more often since our attacker might attack us stepping forward with the right foot in real life.

Kihon, kicking it into gear….

The kihon we did last week was mostly punches and block but today Sensei Noia had us work on kicking drills.

We started moving forward with front snap kick, next we did front snap kick with side thrust kick, then came front snap kick, back kick and front snap kick.

Another drill was front snap kick, back kick, front snap kick, back kick and front snap kick combination.  My feet were ready to fall off and my balance was not to good at this point but it was a good drill.

The next drill was horse stance, stepping sideways doing three side thrust kicks at different levels.  For example, we did a low side thrust kick to knee height, then another to belt level and the next as high a possible all without setting our foot down in between kicks.

My legs were  screaming at this point and luckily for me, it was time for class to end.

On another note, Sensei Gatch is now taking the advanced class with us.  I always felt that taking class with my Sensei’s brings up the energy level and now with both Sensei Gatch and Sensei Plocharczyk in class, the energy is through the roof!