Sensei Noia wanted us to work on some shifting basics today.

The band Elwood, the band….

We started with a partner and an elastic band.  We faced other while one partner held the handles and the other wrapped the band around our waist.  From the point, the partner with band around their waist would shift backward and the other would hold the band.  We would shift back and forth and then when Sensei counted, we would shift back twice and then shift in and reverse punch our partner.  I was working with my friend Robert and we were really hit each other very hard.  There’s only a handful of people that I can hit this hard and Robert is one of them who enjoys returning the favor.

After we finished the band drills, we did some free sparring using the same techniques that we worked on while using the bands.  Shift out twice with our partner and then shift in an punch.

Non-stop kicks….

We finished up class with 60 seconds of non stop kicks.  One partner would throw continuous kicks while the other tried to block all of them.   We then switched off and it was our partners turn.   This was an extremely tiring drill but a lot of fun.

I was using the x-block like that in Heian Yondan and Heian Godan to block most of the kicks and it works really well.  It’s always neat to be able to apply movements from katas when sparring, in my opinion.

Today, Sensei Cieplik has us work on keeping connection with our heels when doing our movements.

Turn on the heels and push from the hips…

We started class with the normal warm up and then started doing some basic kihon drills.

Early in the class, we started working on Heian Shodan but with extra attention to our turns.  Instead of turning using our shoulders, Sensei had us turn on our back heel into a cat stance and then push our front leg forward to finish the movement.  Turning into a cat stance does a couple of things, it makes us stay connected with the back leg and moving from the cat stance to the front make us drive forward from our hips.  This does slow the kata down for me but if makes it feel much more powerful and accurate for some reason.

We spent the rest of the class working on all of the katas trying to stay connected to the floor while doing them.  We started with Heian Shodan and when all the way to Jion.

This was one of those classes that I and most of the class won’t forget.  Sensei Noia had us train on the hill outside the dojo.  It’s more like a steep crater than a hill to me though.

If you move too fast, you will fall down….

We started out with few sprints up the hill and then a slow jog back down.  The key is to make sure that you don’t run too fast when going downhill or you will end up at the bottom.

Next came low walks, not only up but down too.  Going down is extremely hard and you have to make sure that you place your front foot in the right place, which is hard then it sounds but possible.

Next came jumping kicks uphill.  The front snap kicks weren’t too bad but roundhouse and hook kicks were almost impossible for me.

We also did jumping squats up the hill but after just a few, I ended up sprinting up the hill since me legs just would not leg me do the squats.

Basics and kata…

Next came moving forward and back with front stance and backstance doing various strikes and blocks up and down.  Getting into a low stance was almost impossible because of the steep angle.

We did kata from Heian Shodan all the way to Tekki Shodan.

Uneven kumite….

We finished up with some kumite on the hill.  Sensei told us that we could only use hand techniques since kicks on the hill would have been a little risky.

It was an awesome class but extremely tough.  I hope we do this again.