I am not sure if you have the same thing but are there times when you have a great class but really wish your body worked better? Today was one of the those days.

Sensei Noia led the class with an excellent warm up. We did a lot of dynamic stretching and some static stretches like holding a low lunge and twisting. Those movements really made me feel more loose that usual.

After that came some stance training. Sensei had us get into a horse stance and had us do 40 or so punches. After that, he had us shuffle up and throw a side thrust kick. I was warmed up well at that point.

Next, we got a partner. We got into a horse stance, put our hands in a cup at about belt level and our partner put their foot on our cupped hands. Sensei would then count and have the person raise their foot and then pull it back as fast as possible. This is were the bad body comes in to play for me. I was so frustrated. I could get my leg up but holding it and raising it was a totally different story. I really need to do drills like these at home.

We finished up with some kata. Sensei Noia had us split up into groups and we did our respected kata. My Jion felt pretty good tonight and I am now working on trying to perfect the movements and make them more fluid. I remember all the movement without a problem now but I need to make it look good.

Even though I am frustrated with my kicking ability, class was excellent.

Another great class.

Sensei Gatch split the class up into groups. He took the green belts and Sensei Plocharczyk took the purple belts and brown belts.

Sensei Plocharczyk had us start with kata. The gym was extremely cold for some reason so doing the kata was a good warm up. We all started with Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan, Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan, Heian Godan, Tekki Shodan and the he had my wife and I move in front to do Jion since we were the only brown belts in the class. Sensei gave me some good advice and said that I need to keep my draw hand tight and when I move into the first horse stance right before the end of the kata, I need to show more power.

After that warmup, Sensei had us put on our pads and get a partner. He wanted to teach us some ground based self defense movements since we do not work on them too often. We started with some moves from various positions. We started standing and our partner would put us in a choke from behind. We then had to break out of the hold, turn around and attack before they had a chance to attack. We did that from a couple of different positions such as kneeling and on our backs.

Next, we started out on backs trying to keep our partner from scoring on us by using our legs or by getting up to our feet. We also worked on some movements where we would use our legs as scissors to take our partner down. Sensei Plocharczyk also talked about safe distances being both far distance and “ground” zero where you are pretty much hip to hip with someone.

It was a really good class and I feel that I learned a lot from it.

Even though I was training at home and the gym while I had the last week off from class, I felt really good when class started. I was glad to be back and looking forward to getting in a good workout.

It was an excellent class tonight.

We started with a little different warm up than usual. Then came some low walks, twisting low walks and then a bunch of kicking drills. The twisting low walks are something that I want to add to my home workout. We did, moving forward, double front snap kick and double roundhouse kick to get the blood really flowing. Instead of doing the normal stretches, we did some dynamic stretching.

Next came the hard part. Sensei Noia has us get a partner and a resistance band. He had our partner put the band around our hips and while moving forward, in a front stance, our partner would hold the band to give us resistance when moving. We must have done over 30 reps of that one movement. Next came the same thing but in a horse stance. I had a really hard time doing the horse stance against resistance. Then, to make things even harder, Sensei had us do the same movement but with the addition of a slow side thrust kick. The only way to do the kick with the resistance band is to drive off the stationary leg.

I really like classes like these where we work heavily on our conditioning.