Sensei Noia kept us moving with lots of kicks, lots of kata and some bunkai all in under 60 minutes.  I am glad he did because the dojo was freezing cold.  Even though we did a good warm up, it was still cold.

Our warm up consisted of jogging across the dojo half way and back, then full distance and back for five times.  I was noticing some slight cramping in my calves but I think it was because of the cold temperature.

We moved into some kihon after the warm up and started moving forward in a front stance doing front snap kick, side thrust kick and back.  We then did the same kicks but stepped down into a different stance each time which included back stance, horse stance, cat stance and cross leg stance.

We then did a moving drill where we did two steps with downward block on the first step and rising block on the second step.  We then did another drill four steps where the first was downward block and then we followed that with three steps with rising blocks.

20 plus katas….

We started with Taikyoku Shodan twice, then Heian Shodan twice, Heian Nidan 3 times, Heian Sandan once, Jion twice, Bassai Dai twice, Kanku Dai twice, Hangetsu twice, Empi 3 times and Bassai Sho twice.  We did the kata the first time while Sensei was counting and each kata after was on our own with full power and full speed.

Bunkai from your kata….

We spent the rest of the class working on bunkai from Heian Shodan and Heian Nidan.

For the first drill, we started with bunkai for Heian Shodan.  The attacker steps in and punches, the defender blocks with the reaching hand, does a rising strike under the attackers chin and grabs the back of the attackers head and takes them down to the floor.  It was a simple drill that is easy to execute but also effective.

For the next drill we worked on Bunkai from Heain Nidan.  The attacker punches, the defender blocks with a right hand knife hand block, then the defender reaches with the left hand and outward blocks with the right hand, the defender grabs the attackers punching hand then kicks to the knee or higher to take them down to the floor so that they are kneeling and the defender  then follows that up with a punch to the back of the head.

A lot of work in a what seemed like a short time.  Sensei Cieplik kept us moving with kicks, kihon, partner drills and kata.  We also spent time working on sen no sen and sen sen no sen.

If you aren’t warm after this, you just aren’t kicking…

Rear leg front snap kick for 20 times each leg
Front leg front snap kick with rear leg step back for 10 times each leg
Front snap kick to front with back kick to rear for 5 times each leg
Front snap kick to front and side thrust kick to the side for 5 times each leg
Front snap kick to front, side thrust kick to side, back kick to the rear, roundhouse kick to the front, hook kick to the front and front snap kick to the front for 3 times each leg
Start in front stance with reverse hand out in front, pull front hand back and front snap kick with rear leg then step back down and punch for 5 times each side

Kihon in front stance…..

We started our kihon drills with knee strike, front snap kick, pivot 90 degrees and set it down.  Next came front leg front snap kick, step down with triple punch.  After that, Sensei felt that our kicks needed some help so he had us hug our front leg, move forward and step down.  The next drill was front leg front snap kick, move forward with triple punch.  We finished off front leg stances with front leg front snap kick, drop into a low lunge then step forward with a triple punch.

Kihon in a horse stance….

We started in a straddle leg stance with our toes out at 90 45 degrees, and squatted all the way down then rocking side to side.  After that, from the same stance, we moved right to left trying to move our feet as little as possible but still moving our bodies.

After our hips were torched, I mean warm up, for horse stance we did step across from horse stance to horse stance.  Next, we did step across with side thrust kick, then side snap kick, then both side snap kick with side thrust kick.

The next horse stance drill was different.  For this, we stepped across and did a side snap kick, then a low hook kick to sweep the leg and then a side thrust kick to the knee to take them down to the ground.

Straddle leg stance side snap hook sweep side thrust both legs

Kata and sen no sen and sen sen no sen….

We started working on kata by doing Heian Shodan very slowly.  After that, we worked on some techniques from the article that I posted on Shotokanmaster.com.

Sen no sen is where one partner reverse punches and the other partner blocks and punches at the same time.  The other drill we worked on was Sen sen no sen where one partner attacks and the other partner attacks and counters that attack at the same time.

We finished up kata doing H1 – H3 twice, H4, H5 and Tekki Shodan and then we finished up with Jion up to the first kiai twice.

Another excellent kata class today.

We started out doing each kata, Heian 1 through Heian 5, Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai, once and then doing the same katas but this time in mirror image.  Mirror image katas are always interesting but if you do not do them often, it can really slow things down.  It was a good warm up and a good wake up telling me that mirror image katas might be something that I need to spend more time on outside of the dojo.

Full and chunks of kata….

Sensei Noia started out by counting each move of Bassai Dai and then he had us done a full kata on our own.  After Bassai Dai, we split up the Kyu ranks and the Shodans for their respective katas..

We spent a lot of time working on Kanku Dai.  Sensei had use work on parts of the kata, then he broke it up into thirds and then we did the entire kata on our own.  We spent at least 20 minutes or longer just working on Kanku Dai.  We did Kanku Dai at least three times before we moved on. I really feel that breaking the katas down into bite size pieces or chunks makes a big difference.

Apply your kata….

After that, Sensei had us choose the kata of our choice, I picked Gojushiho Sho, and then get a partner, my partner did Bassai Dai, and work on an application (bunkai) of a movement or group of moves from our kata.

For example, in Gojushiho Sho, my attacker moves in with a front punch and reverse punch, I deflect both of them and then use a spear hand strike to his throat.  There are many different applications for each move but this just one that I thought of while doing this drill.