Sensei Brien had us work on our examination preparation. Exam time is right around the corner and Sensei wants to make sure that we are prepared.
20+ minutes of really hard work….
Sensei had us go through the entire kihon part of our exam. It included the following:
- Horse stance with front punch, double punch and rising block.
- Moving forward and backward front punch
- Moving forward and backward with sanbon zuki
- Moving forward and backward with rising block and reverse punch
- Moving forward and backward with downward block and reverse punch
- Moving forward and backward with inward block and reverse punch
- Moving forward and backward with inward block, elbow strike and backfist
- Moving forward and backward with knife hand block, front snap kick and reverse punch
- Moving forward and backward with front snap kick and front punch
- Moving forward and backward with double front snap kick
- Moving forward and backward with double roundhouse kick
- From horse stance, moving sideways with side thrust kick
- From horse stance, moving sideways with side snap kick
- Shifting forward with front hand jab
- Shuffle up with reverse punch
- Moving forward with shift and jab followed with shuffle and reverse punch
Sensei had us do all of those movements with less then 10 seconds rest between them. The last time we did this, I was ready to fall down but today, it was hard but much easier than the last time we did this in class. We also did more moves in each group than at the test. Normally we do five of each group of movements but Sensei had us do six or more for some movements which was a little hard then what we would see at our test.
Sensei suggested that to prepare for our exam, we should do sprints and not long distance running since our movements are anaerobic by nature and not aerobic.
Kata with spirit, even though you are tired….
After a few minute rest, Sensei had us do our kata. He was looking at the speed of the kata and the spirit that we had when we did it. He made the point that many people, when tired, start the kata with a lot of spirit but soon the output level drops and the spirit goes way down. Another point he made is that people speed up their kata just to try and get it done because they are tired.
Sensei had us do our kata twice more but taking those points into account.
One step kumite….
We spent the rest of the class working on one-step kumite. Sensei wanted us to work on doing the block and counter attack like we would de-ai. He wanted us to sense when our partner was going to attack, block extremely fast and counter attack before they finished their attack. Not too easy a task to perform but if we can get it, it will help improve not only our one step but our free sparring and self defense.
It was a very tough but good class.