Sensei Cieplik gave some really good tips in class.  Sometimes it is the simple things that enlighten me.

Kicking…

We started with our normal kicking warm up.  After Sensei saw us do some back kicks, he gave us some advice.  We normally do a front snap kick, side thrust kick, back kick and roundhouse kick.  He told us to use the rebound from the back to throw the roundhouse kick.

The next advice came is for moving from front snap kick into the side thrust kick to the front.  It is a little hard to describe in text but when after the front snap kick finished, he said to drop the knee the pull it back up to the started of the side thrust kick while turned on the foot on the ground.  Moving the knee in that way will help turn the body 90 degrees on the stationary foot and allow the side thrust kick to thrown.

Lots of kata…

Sensei Cieplik gave us a lot of good tips about kata too.

We spent a lot of time working on Heian Shodan.  The first time through, Sensei had us do it as his count.  The second time, he told us to do it on our own but count 1-1000 between each move to show zanshin.  For one of the first times, I has an “it” moment while doing my kata.  It was as if I did it outside of my body and was watching it from the side.  It was an interesting experience and one that I hope I can have more often.

Next we did Heian Shodan again but we did the knift hand blocks a gedan level.  It was really hard doing the blocks down low like that since I have done it the other way for such a long time.

Next, Sensei explained a little different stance that we never really practice since it is not part of Shotokan.  The stance is call uke ashi dachi, front leg blocking stance.  It is like a cat stance but the front foot is farther away. Sensei had us do the last four moves of Heian Shodan with uke ashi dachi at the end instead of back stance.

The next kata we worked on was Heian Nidan.  We did the kata but at the end we added the uke ashi dachi stance to each of the moves at the end.  The idea was to add a stance in between.  Doing the last moves like this forces our leg and hips forward as opposed to just stepping into the moves like we often do.

Next can Heian Yondan.  The one part of this kata that Sensei had us really pay attention to was the moving from the side snap kick, into the front stance with elbow smash.  The idea was to do the side snap kick with back fist, very gently touch the floor with the kicking foot, (pet the mouse as Sensei Cieplik calls it) and then move into the front stance with elbow smash.  Having the lightness on the front leg really allows the hips to get under the movement.  It made the movement feel extremely powerful.

Get a partner…

Sensei had us get a partner.  I paired up with a really nice Shodan and we worked on some self defense drills.  The idea was for us to push our attackers front hand to the opposite shoulder, punch across the chest, move in and knee them in the tender area on the back of the hamstring area and then sweep the far leg.  Punching across the chest was to allow us to position ourselves to sweep them while pushing them over from up top near the chest.  The movement would send them down to the ground in the back of their neck so we stopped short in this drill.  I was having a little trouble getting the idea and Sensei came over and said, do the move “with the body”.  He often says “with the body” but letting the body do the move quickly, without fighting it, made the move much easier to understand for me.

It was an excellent class.