Sensei Cieplik had us spend some extra time on our kicks again but tonight he had us work on a drill that we haven’t done too often.

Make those kicks better….

We started with our normal kicking warm up doing 20 front snap kicks to the front, then 10 front snap kick and back kick combination, then front snap kick and side thrust kick to the front followed by front kick, back kick, roundhouse kick and front kick.  After that, we did stationary  rear leg knee strike with front snap kick.  Sensei gave me some more advice on my front snap kicks in general, when I am putting my leg back down behind me, I am snapping my foot too far back on the retraction and pointing my toes down at the floor.  I need to keep the bottom of my foot even with the ground and keep my toes up until my foot is down behind me.  I also need to be mindful of this when doing any of my front snap kicks, moving forward or back.

Next, we started in a front stance and did front leg front snap kick followed with a rear leg front snap kick moving forward.  Sensei gave me some really good advice on this kick.  He said, after the front leg kick, step forward and down instead of just down.  If you miss the target with the front leg front snap kick, stepping forward and down allows a follow up attack with a shin strike.  It also helps to make the in-between stance lower and the second kick higher.  After that we did moving forward double front snap kick but paying attention to the shin strike in between the kicking movements.  We followed that up with double roundhouse kick.  Sensei said that if you turn your hip too far sideways the kick can easily be avoided.

Shuffle up and kick…..

For the next drill, Sensei had us shuffle our back foot up to our front foot and throw a front leg roundhouse kick.  This is certainly not my kick but Sensei told me to throw a cutting kick instead.  The idea is to make the back foot drive the front foot when kicking and the front foot drive the back foot when pulling it back.   In order for this move to be effective, it needs to be done quickly.  I can see nothing but improvements in my kicks, I do this drill outside of class too.   I just need to make sure that I don’t sweep myself in the process.

A few more basics and some kata….

We also did moving forward and with downward block, rising block, inward block, outward block and reverse punch.  Next, we did a single Heian Shodan.  We then did backstance with knife hand block, front snap kick and spear hand strike moving forward and back.

The next kata we did was Bassai Dai and after that, everyone else continued doing kata while Sensei asked me to assist one my fellow Karateka on the side.

It was an awesome class!

This article was originally posted on www.shotokanplanet.org. Any reproduction on any other site is prohibited and a violation of copyright laws.