After our warm up, Sensei Cieplik had us start class with some kihon doing normal block and strike combinations along with some kicking drills.

Fast Kihon…

We moved through our kihon drills really fast.  Sensei had us start moving forward and back doing rising block with reverse punch, downward block with reverse punch, inward block with reverse punch and outward block with reversse punch all in high speed.  Normally we pause between each combination of moves but this made it interesting.  I was panting like an old dog.

We also did some kicking drills and spent a good amount of time, moving in a horse stance doing side thrust kicks, side snap kicks and sideways front snap kicks.

Heian Shodan all the way to Kanku Dai…

We spent a great deal of time working on Kata all the way from Heian Shodan to Kanku Dai.  The bad part is that there was so much information, I can hardly remember all that Sensei shared with us.

We normally do one Heian Shodan for a kata warm up and then Sensei has us do it again but with something different.  Today, we did the kata but for the last four moves we did a gedan level shuto instead of chudan shuto.

In Heian Sandan, when doing the side snap kick with back fist, hold the movement and then turn the head to look the other direction, then switch hands and move into the back stance with knife hand but pay extra attention to the elbow strike.

In Heian Sandan, keep the head looking forward when doing the three horse stance moves with block and back fist.

In Heian Yondan, pull the left leg in half way before during the second side snap kick.  Also, after the head smash, look behind and then move into the back stance with knife hand block and pay extra attention to the draw hand elbow strike.

In Heian Godan, stop and pause after the jump before moving into the front stance with double outward block.

In Jion, when you come back into the yoi position, take your time.  This is your rest.  Also, Sensei mentioned that that movement can be done like the end of Kanku Dai and both hands come up high and then move into the ready position.  It’s hard to explain in text but your body looks like a Y and then your hands cross and end up down at each side but a distance away from the sides of the body.

I am sure that I forgot some information here but hopefully this covers most of it.

This was a fun class.  Sensei Cieplik had us do things that he said we don’t often do.

Mentally challenging….

We did the normal warm up with our kicks and then moved right into our kihon drills.

Sensei wanted us to work on things that we normally don’t do.

We started moving forward and back in a back stance with rising block.  Still in a back stance, we did inward block and then gedan shuto.  The movements themselves weren’t too hard but getting the mind to do them was.  It just goes to show how we get in a pattern of doing the same movements.

Next, we did front snap kick, then block with the same leg while turning 90 degrees and put the kicking leg behind us to move into a front stance.  Next, we did the same move but after putting our back leg down, we did a reverse punch.

For the next drill, we did a front snap kick but to three targets.  We kicked to the left rib area, right rib area and the center without putting the kicking leg down.  The idea was to not twist the hips to kick to the outside center targets.

Back snap kick….

Here was a move that I never remember seeing until today.  We started in a horse stance looking right, we then slide the front leg backward half way, then push the back leg behind into low front stance, with the leg straight and then snap our heel to our butt, much like how we snap our kick back after a front snap kick.   This kick is meant to be used on an attackers groin and I am sure it would be really effective.

We finished up doing a kata, the name of the kata escapes me, from another style of Karate.  It was a very flowing kata and a lot of fun.

After five years, I believed that the hardest classes were behind me.  I thought that since I was this far along I could take any type of punishment after some of the classes that I had in the past.  We can throw that idea out the window.  Sensei Noia gave us one of the hardest, if not the hardest, classes that I remember ever having.

Not for the weak hearted….

We started with the usual warm up by jogging back and forth across the gym eight times.  After that, we did low walks but with a little twist.  We did low walks to the quarter line then 10 squats and back to the start, next we went to the half line and did 10 more squats and back, then we went to the three quarter line and did 10 more squats and back and finally, we went to the end of the gym and did, you guessed it, no, 20 squat this time and back to the start.  My legs were calling me some really nasty names at this point.

For a rest, we all spread out and did a very slow kata of our choice.  I did Heian Shodan since I always like to warm up with that kata whenever I have a choice.

Next, we were supposed to do bear crawls to the quarter, half, three quarter, end and back but I ended up doing low walks again since my coordination for bear crawls is not the best.  Instead of doing squats at each distance, we did 10 push ups at each quarter line and 20 at the end.

For another rest, we did another kata.  This time I picked Heian Yondan since I always like doing this kata.

Low walk kata….

For the rest of the class, we did low walks to each line again but this time we did a kata and then jogged back to the start line.  I did Heian Nidan first, Heian Sandan second, Tekki Shodan third and Bassai Dai at the end.

I think there might have been a couple more katas somewhere in the mix but I might have blacked out or am just trying to block it from my mind.  The moral of this story is, just when you think you have had the hardest training day ever, your Sensei might just prove you wrong.