Sensei Noia had us spend almost the entire class working on sparring drills.

We partnered up and did shifting drills back and forth across the gym. After that, we worked on double shifts with attacks. We then did the same thing but were able to counter. These drills are really helping with my timing and distance.

After that, we did some angle drills. Our partner would stand in front of us, we would attack and then shift on an angle to the right. We did this in a movement like hands on a clock. I need more work on this drill. Moving in angles is hard for me at this time.

Next, we moved on to a drill where we slap our partners hand out of the way and attack to the outside. For example, I would slap my partners hand out of the way and hit them with a reverse punch to the back or open area near the ribs. We also did the same drill with kicks.

After that, we finished up with some self defense movements. We would do a knife hand block, knocking our partners hand out of the way, grabbing their arm with the other hand and then hitting them in the neck area with the edge of our hand. These drills require some pretty good coordination. We then worked on the same type of movement but added a knee strike after the knife hand to the neck.

I am finally starting to enjoy the sparring drills since we have been having classes like these.

Sensei Cieplik showed us so many things in class, I am sure that I am not remembering everything.

We spent a good amount of time warming up with our normals kicking other movements.

After our warm up, Sensei had us work on moving forward with our hands on our hips. He told us to squeeze the floor and be sure to bring our knees in, to protect the groin area, when moving forward. He had us do something that we have worked on before but I never really understood it until tonight. When moving forward, he had us move into a cat stance and then kick our lower leg forward into a front stance. This gave an entirely different feeling to the movement. It also made the movement feel much faster and stronger than before. I really need to work in this at home. We then added the punch to this movement and the hand just came out, almost be itself. Doing the movement “with the body” or focusing on the leg movements made the punch fly out almost as if it was natural.

We then moved on to knee strikes and front snap kicks. Again, paying attention to squeezing the floor, the legs fly out with much more power and speed. Doing the knee strikes, while squeezing the floor almost makes the lower leg extension into a front snap almost automatic. Sensei also had us pay attention to when we come done from the kicks. We would kick, come down almost into a cat stance an then kick our leg forward.

During class, Sensei talked about what I think were the five elements or things that body can do.  Moving up, down, body rotation, body shock and body vibration.

We then worked on some partner drills.  For the first drill, Sensei had us stand in a knee to knee front stance with our partner.  Our partners knee was on the inside and ours was on the outside.  Our partner would push their knee outward against ours and we would throw a slow reverse punch at their abdomen, and if we applied the proper pressure with our legs, we would push them back.  If the punching person did not apply the correct pressure or squeeze with the legs, there was no way to move our partner.  Sensei said to make the hips look at each other.  He also said, when squeezing the floor, try to pull the front leg back and pull the back leg forward while gripping the floor with our feet to get the correct pressure.  Making the hips look at each other is something really helped me visualize what my legs should be doing when I squeeze.

We then did a similar drill where we would get into a front stance and our partner would apply a light pressure to leg by pulling our knee to the outside.  This forced us to squeeze but it also made us kick directly to the center.  There was a much different feeling, the kicks were much faster, stronger and dead center.

It was another excellent class and I am sure what I learned tonight will go a long way in help improve both my stances and the way I move.