From a front stance do a front snap kick and hold, then drop the body down on to the stationary leg then put kicking foot down into blocking leg stance and push forward from the hips into a front stance.

Sensei felt that our kicks needed some help so we did some squat kicks.  This drill starts out standing, you squat down, then come back up and kick with one leg, then squat back down again and kick with the other leg until Sensei says stop.  I am not sure how long we did this drill but there were at least 25 kicks with each leg.  The kicking part is easy and the squatting part is not.

We moved on to rising block, inward block, outward block and downward block all with reverse punch.  After that drill, Sensei wanted us to push more from the hips and he had us start in a front stance, turn 180 degrees into a cat stance and then push forward from the hips into a front stance again.  When doing the turn, the idea was to turn using the hips, not the shoulders, and then move into the front stance again, using the hips.

This drill was different, like many of the drills Sensei Cieplik has been sharing with us lately.  We worked on loose arm punches but we let our arm swing all the way behind us and when it was loose, we punched.  The idea was to keep the arm straight when swinging it and then let it fly into our partner and then tighten up at the point of impact.  These loose power moves are more powerful than any tensed moves that I have done in the past.  One important note when doing these loose power movements is, you should hit something otherwise you might hyper-extend your elbows like I do.

We spent the rest of the class working on kata.  We did Heian Shodan using the loose power punch on all punching movements.

We also did Heian 1 three more times, Heian 2, 3, 4, and 5 twice each.  We then finished up class taking a Kyu rank on the side to help them with their kata.  I took my friend Tom through Heian 5 a few times, sharing what Sensei shared with me over the years and class was over.

Today’s class was more about the mental than the physical aspects of Karate but sometimes, these are some of the hardest classes.

Slow motion sparring….

Classes like these really make sparring fun.  Working with good people and doing slow motion sparring makes you see the openings and mentally process them unlike when you a moving full speed.  It doesn’t matter if you get hit or not, the learning in those few minutes of this drill are worth hours, even days of training to me.

Block, punch, block, punch….

For the next drill, we did a standing strike and block drill.  For this drill, partner A punches with the left hand, then partner B blocks with the left hand and then punches with the right hand and partner A blocks with the hand they punched with.  The idea is the punching hand becomes the blocking hand then the other hand punches and you go back and forth with your partner increasing speed.  This is more of a mental drill than a physical drill and it really makes you think about what you are doing as it gets faster.  We did the same drill but while moving which made it about 10 times as hard as when we were stationary.

One step sparring but different…

We finished up working on some one step sparring but not our normal.  The idea behind this drill was to not use the standard counter attacks consisting of standard punches.  We used other attacks such as elbow strikes, knee strikes, palm heel, ridge hand and other moves not just punches.  Even though it doesn’t sound like anything hard, after doing one step sparring with standard moves it make you think outside the box.  For example, a standard punch to the face can be counted by stepping back with rising block and then a front snap kick to the groin as counter.  One of my personal favorites is, as they punch, step in with an outward block, grab their punching arm and counter with a rising elbow under their chin.

I am sure that many others would agree with me when I say that every class I have taken with Sensei Cieplik, I have learned at least one new thing or how to do something better.  Sometimes, Sensei has to tell us how to do something more than once and even if it takes years for us to “get it” he never gives up.  Today was another one of those classes where he helped us with our kicks again.

Use all six joints to kick…

After our warm, Sensei told us, in order to kick, we need to use six joints to kick.  When kicking, you need to use your ankle, knee and hip joints on both legs to perform a kick correctly.  If you leave out one of those joints the kick will not have as much power, it will stress your body and make the kick come from joints where it is not supposed to.  For example, if the stationary leg is straight at the knee joint, your hip will not extend as far as it could and your ankle will cause you to lose your balance because both of those joints will have to make up for the lack of movement in the knee.  There are any other example for each joint but the key takeaway is to use all six of them when kicking.

Basics…

For our basics, moving forward and back, we did rising block, inward block, outward block and downward block all with reverse punch. We then did outward block, job and reverse punch.  Next, we did shuffle up, front leg roundhouse kick, step down with reverse punch.  Then came shift forward and jab and shift forward with reverse punch.

Punch with some smack behind it….

The main idea here is to use loose power to make the punch more effective.  You start with your arm at your hip, angle your forearm up and then punch at a downward angle.  The angle of the forearm is about 45 degrees where our hand goes to shoulder level and then we angle it back down and hit to the solar plexus.  This allows the punch to move extremely fast and the downward motion makes it very powerful.

Kata with a tate punch….

We finished class with kata doing Heian 1 through Heian 5  and then Heian Shodan again three more time but using a tate (vertical) punch every time there was a punch the kata much like loose punch drill that did before.  Also, while doing the knife hand movements, when we did the reach with the draw hand and focused on attacking the eyes with those fingers before doing the knife hand block.

For those who have never use a tate punch, try it.  It aligns the bones on the arm and allows for a lot of power and it also minimizes the chance of rolling the wrist when punching very hard.