Sensei Cieplik had us start with the normal kicking warm up.  For some reason, my front kicks felt better.  I am not sure how to describe it but they were moving more like whips instead of heavy tree trunks.

Let it whip…

Sensei had us work on a drill where instead of doing our blocks with full motion, we were to use our arms like whips and our hips for power.  The idea was to block with a small motion.  For example, when doing a downward block, we kept our blocking hand on our lower abs and used the whipping motion and the power of our hips to execute it.

Punch with the hips…

The next drill was to help us punch using our hips instead of our arms and upper body.  The idea was to punch with a very short but powerful movement.  If any of you have seen the one-inch punch from Bruce Lee, you will get the idea.

Sensei had us get a partner and a pad and had us work on doing the movement while actually hitting something instead of just punching the air.  It took some time for me to get the hang of it but once I realized that I had to lock my upper arm against my back, it really worked.  The way that it worked best for me was to put my finger tips against the pad and then push my hips forward and close my hand into a fist.

Kata the way I like it…

Sensei had us work on kata next.  The way I really like to do kata in class is when Sensei counts out each move and tells us exactly how he wants us to do it.  It makes me feel that each move is correct because I can focus on the movement itself.  We started with Heian Shodan for a little warm up and then moved on to Heian Nidan for our yellow belt in the class and Heian Sandan for the blue belt in our class.  After those kata, Sensei had us do Jion, Bassai Dai and Kanku Dai.