Sensie Noia spent most of the class working on sparring drills with us.

There are times when I really don’t like to spar. It’s not that I am afraid but I often feel that I am not improving at the same rate as I do with kihon and kata. I was talking with my chiropractor, Dr. Thomas Pusateri, about sparring since he is also into Karate for many years and I made the comment that when I fight, I am used to getting hit and then hitting back and that is why I am do not enjoy sparring.

When I was younger, my mother always told me, first to ignore bad people but if I had to fight, I should not throw the first punch. I have gone through life with that in mind and I have a very hard time punching someone if they have not hit me first. Even if they do hit me first, I still would rather not hit them back when sparring but I do try.

The good part about this is that after talking to Dr. Pusateri, I realized that my problem or whatever it is. With that in mind, I had one of the better sparring sessions that I remember. I was able to score the first point more than once with different opponents. I am certainly no superman but just realizing what I was doing seems to have helped.

We started with some simple partner back and forth drills. My partner would attack and I would block, we then reset and my partner would block and I would attack. We did that drill a few times and then moved on to drills were we both attacked and blocked. We then did the same type of drill but worked on blocks and counters.

We then did the same drill but moved to a new partner. We ended up working with at least 12 different people while moving down the line.

We finished class with our back against that wall.  Sensei had us get into a front stance and put our back foot against the wall.  From that position, our partner had 30 seconds to throw as many attacks as possible.  To the head and body, the punches were flying and both my partner and I did get hit.  The idea was to keep focus, even after getting hit and continue to block without giving up.  We did this two time but the second time, we were able to use kicks.  When time came for me to be attacked, Sensei Gatch came over to throw kick after kick at me.  It was pretty funny but I certainly did not give up.

It was a great class and hopefully it is a positive turning point for my sparring abilities.

What a great class. I learned a lot in this class that will help make my kihon better.

Where to start, there was just so much, I will try to remember all of it.

Sensei Cieplik told us that during the winter months, he likes to have us warm up with more kicks than punches since it gets the blood flowing better then just punches which restrict blood flow to the heart and upper body organs during the cold months.

We did our normal front kicks, side kicks and back kicks, along with some roundhouse kicks to warm up but then we did something a little different.

Note: Sensei told me to turn my foot in a few degrees when doing my front snap kicks. By moving the position of my foot, just a small amount, my kick was so much more accurate. When I would kick without turning my foot in, my kicks were going to the outside or on an angle away from center. I was told this before but until now, it never clicked. It also made my front stance much more solid.

Sensei had us stand on one foot while pushing our hip forward. From that point, with our foot out in front of the opposite leg knee, we did a slow side thrust kick. Sensei sees some of us doing our side thrust kicks with the kicking foot too far behind the stabilizing leg. While doing the kick like this, it forces the foot to travel in the correct position to it’s target, it allows a greats choice of targets for the kick to hit. He had us do this to three different heights all while not letting the kicking foot touch the ground. This drills lasted for about 2 minutes and 30 seconds for each leg. I had better balance with my left leg than my right for some reason. I have noticed a problem with my balance when standing on my right leg for some reason.

We then worked on some stances. Sensei had us get into a horse stance and work on moving sideways. Instead of stepping across and falling into the stance, he had us pull with the forward leg and squeeze our leg muscles into the stance. It is hard to describe but it made the movement and stances so much more stable. We then added the side thrust kicks and side snap kicks to the movements.

We also worked on back stances moving both forward and backward.  Sensei told us a tip that he had mentioned before but I never really applied until today.  He said, when moving forward, turn the front out to the outside.  It shuts off the muscles in the front leg and allows the back leg to move easily to the front.  This also helps keep the heels in good alignment.  Moving backward is not so easy for me and on most of those moves, my heels came out of alignment.  I am using less shoulders when moving which is an improvement for me.

Sensei made a comment about Think, Action, Display.  The analogy that he used was screaming at a glass of water.  Your mind (think) starts the scream, the scream (action) causes the water to vibrate and you see it (display).

We finished up class with some kata.  We did the first nine moves of Heian Shodan and Sensei had us stand up and then take three steps back.  He watched how everyone took the three steps back and made that comment that even some of the higher belts did not remain alert when moving back.  The idea is that even if you won your battle or match, you need to keep your mind on the situation.  Even though the kata is over, you need to keep your mind there until Sensei says relax.  It’s the same with sparring.  If you score a point and the judge says to stop, you still need to keep your mind on the moment and your opponent.  If you turn your back or stop paying attention, you are open to an opponents mistake or if on the street, another attack.

Sensei also made a couple more points while we were doing Heian Shodan.  He said that kata should be seen as poetry without words.  It means just what it says.

He also made another great point about, when doing kata, anger can be killed but spirit cannot be killed.  This really hit home for me.  I often do my kata with an intensity that I would call anger.  The part is that the anger makes my kata much more mechanical and choppy.  When I concentrate on doing my kata with spirit, it feels much different and almost flows.  The key is getting my mind to do it without the anger and always do it with spirit.  Easy to type but harder to execute.  I am not an angry person but for some reason, my kata often comes out that way.  Hopefully, I will be able to break that habit.

I am sure that I missed some points since Sensei when over so many things but the ones that I remember will go a long way is making my Karate better.

Sensei Noia had us working on kicks and basics for our upcoming rank examinations.

We started with our normal warm up and then moved right into kicks. We were working on more of the advanced kicking combinations that we will have on our test. Front snap kick, side thrust kick and back kick combination. Front snap kick to the front and side thrust kick to the front combination is one of the harder combinations for me. We also did single kicks, from a horse stance moving sideways which included side snap kick and side thrust kick.

After the kicks, we moved on to back stance with knife hand block, front snap kick and nukite. I have to pay extra attention to make sure that I pivot on my heel when I move from the back stance to front stance. My ankles are so inflexible, it is really hard to do and sometimes really painful but I just keep trying until I correct it.

We then moved into front stance with inward block, horse stance with elbow strike and back fist. This movement feels a little better for me now. I used to have a hard time coordinating my feet but they seem to be cooperating much better now.

Another move, that I don’t recall doing before is where we stood on a line, in a back stance with knife hand block, into a front stance with nukite, then backward into a back stance again with the other foot forward and then back into a nukite.

We finished up the class with some kata.  Sensei told us to do our kata as if it was at our exam.  Since we spent almost an hour doing basics, it was no easy task but I did it.  I could have had a little more power on my moves during the second half of the kata but overall it didn’t feel too bad.

I made the comment in the title about no fooling around because, myself and my 2nd Kyu friend, Robert, had to do all of the kihon movements in front of the rest of the class.  Being on the spot made me push myself to limit.  I always give my best in all of my classes but being on display seems to have made me push it even harder.  I could hardly walk after class but it that’s ok, I am sure it will heal up in no time.