I was talking with Sensei Cieplik before class and we got on the subject of keeping my head back while doing my kata and basics.  He suggested that I do Heian Shodan with a tennis ball under my chin.  If the ball falls from my chin, I have to start the kata over again from the start.

Thinking kihon…

After our warm up we started out with moving forward and backward with reverse punch.  Next came reverse rising block, jab and  reverse punch.  We did the same with downward and inward blocks.

Next, we did back stance, knife hand with front snap kick and nukite.  Sensei said to keep our power behind us until we move forward into the attack.  Back stance is a defensive move that keeps our power behind us. The knife hand should be strong, the kicker stronger and the nukite strongest.

The next drill was shuffle up with short roundhouse and then pull back fast into fighting stance.  This idea was to get the kick out as fast as possible and then get back to the fighting stance, ready to attack again.

We ended our kihon drills with moving across with side thrust kick and side snap kick.

Sensei shared a simple movement to help loosen up the hips.  He had us stand with our shoulders relaxed, then raise up on the ball of one foot, keeping the other foot flat on the floor, while not letting the shoulders move.  This exercise helps stretch the hips for side snap kicks.  The idea is the have the hips pivot up and down.

Kata details…

One point that Sensei talked about when we were working on kata was the reasdy stance.  The ready stance should not be aggressive or asleep, it should be as if you are ready to act if needed.  A gaze the sees everything around you but does not focus on any one point.

Sensei said that one of his Sensei’s made a comment, “when in a ready stance, karate is perfect, until we move.”  There seems to be a lot of truth to that statement.

We worked on all kata’s from Heian Shodan up to Bassai Dai

Sensei Cieplik gave us some pointers on parts of the katas.  In Tekki Shodan, back hand strike needs to have front hand pull the attacker in at the same time.  At lot of the power from that movement comes from the draw hand and the motion of pulling the opponent into the strike.

In Jion, when doing the dropping block the blocking arms should drop from up high and the draw hand must be used.  The blocking hand should reach up high and the motion of the arm moving from up high to parallel with the ground should produce the power.  Just using gravity makes the move feel much stronger.

For Bassai Dai, Sensei had us work on pivoting on the heels.  From the first move to the second, pivoting on the heel makes the power come from the hips instead of the shoulders.  The same applies for the other moves.

We ran out of time and Sensei said that we would continue from this point next week.

My arm was much better today.  I am able to tighten my fist again and I can tense my bicep when needed.

Get a partner…

Right from the start, Sensei Noia had us get a partner.  The first drill was partner horse stance punches.  We stood directly in front of our partner and did a jodan front punch.  After that, Sensei had us do sanbon tsuki.  Extended Bassai Dai.

Next came some back stance work.  Sensei had us stand next to our partner and do back stance with knife moving forward and backward.  The idea was to have us do the move faster than our partner while keeping good form.  Doing these types of partner drills really makes me work so much harder.

Next came, back stance moving forward and back.  We would move forward three times and then back once, like the movement in Bassai Dai.   Next, we stood heel to heel with our partner and moved into the front stance position with the reach before kiai.

Use those hips….

Next, we worked on the double blocks from Bassai Dai.  We moved into a front stance with an outward block and then twisted our hips for the reverse outward block.  Sensei wants us to make sure that we snap our hips between blocks.

We then did parts of Bassai Dai from the first move all the way to the first kiai.  We would do the first move a few times, then the first second and third a few times, then the first five moves and so on all the up to the kiai and then a couple moves after.  It was really intense but I think I gave my hips a good workout.

We finihsed up with the entire kata at full power and full speed using the things that we worked on in class.

My neck and arm felt better during this class but still not 100% but it is improving.

Ten-no-kata…

Sensei Bajic worked us hard today.  We spent a good amount of the class working on ten-no-kata movements.  We did the back stance with double block from Jion and then stepped into a front stance with a front punch, from there we moved into the back stance with double block again and kept doing the movement in a square pattern.  We then did a similar movement with back stance, knife hand block with a front snap kick and nukite.  From the front stance we nukite, we started the movement over again forming a square pattern.

Remember all of your kata…

Sensei had us work up all the way from Heian Shodan to Bassai Dai.  I would guess that we did all of those kata in maybe 10 minutes or less and it was taxing on the lungs.

After we did all of the katas, the brown belts each found a spot on the wall and did a kick to the front, side, back and then a roundhouse while the black belts did their kata.  We then switched and the black belts did the kicks while we did our kata.  We swithced places four times