Today was my first class with Sensei DiPasquale.
Warm up kihon…
We started out with some kihon.  Horse stance while punching. Front stance and hold it until it felt like my legs were going to fall off. Partner drills with one partner in a front stance and the other checks to make sure that the stance is correct and the arms are in the correct position.
Kata…
Next, Sensei had us work on parts of Bassai dai. We started with the move from the reach with front punch and block. We then moved on from that point all the way up to the second back stance after the kiai. We started with just four moves and then continued adding moves until we reached the back stance after the kiai. We did this at least 20 times if not more.
Because of those first four moves, the punch, block, punch, block, Sensei wanted us to work on core engagement.  He had us stand up, tighten our butts, pull belly button as far back as we could, contract and breath out. The idea is to make sure that we are tensing the correct muscles when doing our movements.
Time to kick…
Sensei had us work on some kicking drills. We did side thrust kick with front snap kick. Sensei wanted us to pay extra attention to pulling our leg back fast after the side thrust kick. We did a lot of these.
Next, we did a drill where one partner does the core engagement exercise while the other does side thrust kicks and then we switched. Next, we held the wall and did back kicks while the other held various stances, front, back and horse stance.
Finish up…
Sensei had us lay on the floor and do lying side thrust kicks. This was a really cool movement. I have done them before but I forgot all about them. I need to add it to my home training.
We finished up with the plank for about a minute.
This was a very good kihon class and I hope that we have more like it.