I really enjoy exam time,  Not because I am testing but because Sensei Noia has us work on stances and kata for almost three solid months.  This is the time that my Karate improves a great deal and if I could have classes like these all year around, I would not complain.

We started out with the tough warm up again by, jogging twice across the dojo, low walks across and back, butt kickers where we put our hands behind us and try to hit them with out heels, shuffle sideways across and back and dynamic leg raises to the front and side.

Sensei followed that up with a really good stretch, which really helps me loosen up and then we got down to business.

Let the stances begin…

We started facing the side with our feet together and moving into a front stance with reverse punch.  The idea was to move from the hips and push from the back heel.  We did the same with different blocks and punches and then moved forward doing the same.

Next, we did back stance with knife hand block move into front stance with knife hand strike to the front.  We followed that with rising open hand block and the same knife hand strike (from Kanku Dai).  Still in a back stance, we did the downward and high outward block and then moved into front stance with spear hand strike to solar plexus level.

For the next drill, we moved from stance to stance as follows.  We started doing downward block and reverse punch in a horse stance, then moving into back stance  and then into front stance.  We changed stances after each count and then we did all three stance with one count.

Kata parts and all…

We picked a kata (Gojushiho Sho for me) doing only stances.  Then we did it to the first kiai twice and we finished up from the kiai to the end of the kata.

Today was a very enjoyable class.  We did our basics and then spent the rest of the class helping our lower rank fellow students with some kihon and kata.

We started class with our normal kicking warm up.  I thought that I finally had my front snap kick problems worked out but I guess not.  Sensei told me that I am straightening my kicking leg again.  Ugh!  I am nearing my eighth year of Karate and my sixth year of training with Sensei Cieplik and my kicks are still off.  I know I will get it one day.

Basics are the building blocks of everything else…

We spent the first part of class working on basics.  We did moving forward and back with rising block, downward block, inward block and outward block all with reverse punch.

Moving forward and back in back stance with knife hand block, then knife hand block with front leg front snap kick moving into front stance with spear hand strike.

We finished up basics moving side to side in a horse stance with side snap kick, side thrust kick and then both kicks with one count.

Help the lower ranks with one technique….

For the rest of the class, Sensei paired each black belt up with a lower to work on a specific technique.  The technique that I helped my fellow student work on we moving forward with front punch.   The best part about helping others with their techniques is I normally learn something too.

Sensei wanted us to help show them how to punch with the in and down movement.  For example, instead of just stepping in and punching, Sensei had them do a lunging movement to get the feeling of driving in low and punching while using the entire body.   After a few tries, the person I was working with was hitting like a truck.  We then did the movement, the normal way and had him apply the same body motion but in a regular stance.  Even though the movement was not strong when lunging in, it was much stronger than before we did the drill.

We spent the rest of class working on kata and helping our fellow students fine tune their moves for their upcoming exams.

There are days when class goes by too fast and today was one of those days.  Even though Sensei Noia had us work on many different movements, that clock was spinning faster than usual.

Get a partner….

We partnered up and started our drills in a horse stance.  From there we alternated jodan front punch with rising block, chudan front punch with inward block and gedan punch with downward block.

For the next drill, we did the same alternating movement but this time moving forward and backward in a front stance.

Get your kicks in….

Next, we did kicks.  We did moving forward with front snap kick, side thrust kick, back kick and roundhouse kick.  We did two kicks for one count with a three second pause in between each kick and then three kicks for one count, again,  with a three second pause in between kicks.  Trying to balance between the kicks was really tough after doing all those kicks.

Watch my kata…

For the next drill, Sensei had us go back to our original partner.  One partner did their kata while the other watched and gave one good thing and one thing that needs to be corrected about their kata.  Then the other partner did the same.

Constant punches…

We finished up class doing constant punches but moving front stance to stance.  The stances included horse stance, front stance, cat stance, back stance, cross leg stance, fudo dachi and sanchin dachi.

We covered a lot of good stuff and I only wish we had more time because it really got away from us today.