Great class.

Sensei Noia started us out with some sparring drills. We did some simple partner drills just to get warmed up and to see if we were all paying attention. We did some inline drills where we would attack, block and counter with our partners. After that, came some free sparring matches. I ended up with one of the 5th kyu students. This student would not block any punches to his face and I ended up scoring all three of my points and my win with face shots only. He was able to get two points on me by hitting my stomach but his much shorter height gave him the advantage on those two points. I am still afraid of hurting someone when sparring and really pull my punches and kicks because of it. I have had more than a few people tell me that I really tense up my shoulders because of it. I need to work on relaxing and Sensei Plocharczyk said that I need to keep my hands out more in front since I have a tendency to hold them close.

After the sparring came kata. We started with Tekki Shodan for the 4th kyu’s and then moved on to Jion. Sensei Plocharczyk had us do something different. When the 4th kyu’s did Tekki, he had the brown belts and above hold a sit stance against the wall while they did their kata, then they had to do the same while we did ours. The second time, he had us hold the plank position. One thing that I need to work on in Jion is keeping my body at the same height when moving from the first move to the second and third moves. I am coming up in my stances between those moves.

Sensei said that we all did really good so he showed us a black belt kata, Kanku Dai. This is a very cool kata and something that I really liked except for the landing jump part. I am looking forward to doing this kata in the future.

I hope that we have some more classes like this in the future.

Sensei Noia split us up into groups.  He took the black belts and sent the rest of us with Sensei Gatch to do kata.

Sensei Gatch started us off with some Heian Yondan.  It felt pretty good to me.  I was able to keep my balance when doing the side snap kicks and it just felt strong.  Next came Heian Godan.  I didn’t land the jump the right way for some reason but that was the only part that felt off.  Tekki Shodan was next and if it wasn’t for me not being able to curl my tail bone, it felt pretty good too.

We then worked on Jion.  I really like Jion and like doing it too but I am still having some issues with my hip rotation.  I hope to get that worked out and am going to try to come up with some drills to help me improve.

We then went out in groups and we had to evaluate each others kata or at least tell them one thing to work on to improve.

Not a lot to write about since we did nothing but kata but it was a great class.