Something on my mind other than Karate…

We started class with the normal kicking warm up and Sensei Cieplik immediately knew that I was off.  He walked past me and squeezed my right hand and said that I was thinking about something else since my hands were clenched.  As soon as he did that, I was as if a light switch was flipped and my focus change to class instead of whatever else I was I thinking of.

A little different kihon…

Sensei had us work on something new.  We did an inward block, outward block with jab and reverse punch.  The idea was to get the hips warmed up and to make us use our minds in a different way.

Next, we did the standard back stance with knife hand block, front snap kick and nukite.

Partner up…

Sensei Cieplik had us work on some partner drills.

We did a drill with inward block, elbow strike and backfist.  The idea was to block our partners punch,  step about halfway behind them, elbow strike them in the ribs while grabbing their front hand and then backfist them in the head from under their arm pit.  From that point, you could turn their arm over, push the back of their leg and take them down on to the back of their neck.  We didn’t go through with the takedown but the it movement was easy enough to do with very little effort.

Advanced kata time…

Sensei had us finish class with some kata.  This was really interesting and I really enjoyed it.  Sensei had us start with Jion and he counted out each move and gave specific instructions on how we should do the more difficult moves in the kata.  After that, we moved on to Bassai Dai, then Kanku Dai and Hangetsu.  It felt excellent doing the the advanced kata and I hope we this more often.  It is hard to describe but it just felt really good.

As always, it was an excellent class.