We started class with the normal kicking drills and then started with our basics.  We did downward block, inward block, outward block and rising block all with reverse punch.  After Sensei watched our basics, he felt that we need to spend some extra time on moving from the hips instead of leading our techniques with the upper body.

Move your legs with a salad bowl motion…

The main point behind this drill was to relax the hip and then move without standing up.  If you are sparring and you are rising up before your attack instead of relaxing your hip to move, chances are, you are going to get hit because your opponent can see your body rising up to attack.  If you drop the hip first, there will not be much action from the upper body while executing your attack.

The idea also works when you are doing basics.  As you are moving forward or backward, you are dropping the hip which will allow you to move while keeping your head at the same level instead of bobbing up and down.  This also allows for power to be made from the hips because of the retraction of the hip before moving.

This relaxation of the hip is new to me but relaxing the hip and transferring my body weight from the front leg to the back leg, which becomes the front leg, keeps the body from bobbing up and down.

Get close and kick your partner….

After that, Sensei paired Shodan and above with Kyu ranks for some partner horse stance drills.  We started facing each other in a horse stance and did front punch, double punch and front snap kick  Next, one partner pulled one knee up as high as possible to front snap kick the other partner in the stomach.  The hard part about this drill is you need to keep the knee up at all times and be close enough to your partner to put your hands on their shoulders as you are kicking..

The last resort punch….

This is a very powerful movement.  We started with the left knee on the floor and the right hand out in front.  From there, we stepped long into a punch, touching our partner with our right hand near their shoulder as we reach them and then punching them with our left hand.  The idea is to cover your entire body length when stepping into a last resort punch and using their body to help you keep your balance and keep you from falling forward.

Do your kata but make sure you do all of them…

We spent the rest of the class working on kata.  Sensei had us start with Heian Shodan and continue on our own to Heian Godan without stopping.  Sensei said, you should always do all five of the Heian katas whenever you do them.  We then did Tekki shodan twice and then ended class with Kanku Dai.

We started this class with my favorite warm up.  We we told to start at the first kata we know and continue until we did every kata we know.  I started with Ttaikyoku Shodan, all the Heian katas, Tekki Shodan, Jion, Bassai Dai, Kanku Dai, Hangetsu, Empi and Gojushiho Sho for me.  I also started doing Sochin but forgot it for some reason.

I am not sure how good or bad all these katas look when we do them but I certainly feel that they do to improve as we warm up.  It feels like I am doing the first three or four katas in sand but they start to move better and my stances feel lower as I go up the line.

Last of the exam basics…

With testing coming to an end, we started moving forward and backward doing each of the following:

• Downward block with reverse punch
• Rising block with reverse punch
• Inward block with reverse punch
• Outward block, jab with reverse punch
• Inward block, elbow strike and backfist

Then came the kicks:

• Double front snap kick
• Roundhouse kick
• Double roundhouse kick – two steps with two kicks, one kick low and the other kick high
• Front snap kick to the front, side thrust kick to the side and back kick to the rear
• Same as above but add roundhouse kick to the front and reverse punch as we step down

We finished class doing kata.  For those that knew the kata, we did Jion, Bassai Dai, Tekki Shodan and Gojushiho Sho.

I am always sad to see exam time come to an end.  Doing kihon and kata is something that I enjoy most.

We started class with the normal kicking drills and then we moved into basics.

Stance within a stance, salad bowls and relax….

Basics included the usual blocks, inward, outward, downward and rising, all with reverse punch.  We then moved into the meat of the basics and the all time crowd favorite, insert sarcasm here, inward block with elbow strike and backfist.

We spent a lot of time working on this drill because it is the one that both examiners and students dislike most.  The reason is, this block requires a front stance for the inward block and a horse stance for the elbow strike and backfist and most student, me included, move too fast and make the stance look like a jumbled up front horse stance.

The key to this drill is to do a complete inward block, then shift into the horse stance, dropping down in the stance, while using the front leg, top of your thigh, to get under and hit the hamstring of your opponent while driving your elbow into their ribs.  The idea of salad bowl movement, that Sensei Cieplik should trademark, is used when doing this because you drop the body to get under the hamstring and then use the spring or upward motion to take their balance away from them.

The hand motion when moving into the horse stance is to grab their arm to stretch them out as you drive your elbow into their ribs.  I am not certain of why the backfist is needed at that point except to give them a little something else to think about, like maybe a broken nose to have fixed along with their ribs.

Moving backward is where this movement really falls apart but if you insert a cat since, when moving from the horse stance into the front stance, the move cleans up very nicely.

Key takeaways are, make your stances look like that stances they should look like, use the body and the power of the hips to take your opponents balance, insert a stance in between the stance and slow down.

Learn to relax and your kata will improve…

We spent the rest of the class working with partner and watching them do their kata to help them improve. One big thing that I have found over the years is that, myself included, everyone needs to to relax.  This is the one thing that I have seen across the board.  Most adults keep a lot of stress with them, especially in the neck and shoulders and it shows up when doing kata.  If there is a single bit of advice that I can share, it is try to learn to relax.  Sensei says that it takes 10 years to learn to relax, I still have a year to go, but if you can speed up this process your kata will improve.