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Very hard class today.  Sensei Noia pushed us really hard with a lot of basics.

Get hopping….

After a really tough warm up with squat jumps and other really painful movements, Sensei had us do a drill that I don’t remember ever doing in the past.  We did a front snap kick, side thrust kick and a back kick and then hopped three times on the support leg.  We then set that leg done and worked the other leg that same way across the dojo.

Seiza….

For the next drill, we all got down into seiza.  From there, Sensei had us do front punch, double punch, triple punch and some rising block.  After that, we did front kick, side kick and back kick from seiza too.  I would like to officially call these movements knee killers going forward.

Get a partner and make them work hard….

For the next drill, we got a partner and stood across from them in a front stance.  One partner would step forward with a punch followed with a jodan reverse punch where the other would do a rising block and then a reverse rising block. After that, the attacking side would step forward with a chudan punch and reverse punch an the other an inward block and a reverse inward block.  The next move was a gedan punch and reverse punch and the blocking person would do a downward block and reverse downward block.  It was a really tough drill to grasp mentally but near the end, I think I was doing it the correct way.

We finished up in a horse stance in front of our partner.  From there, one partner did an inward block and other did an outward block against each other.  This forced us to use our lat muscles when holding the movement against our partner.

It was really hard but really good too.

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Sensei Brien, along with Sensei Cieplik, often say good kihon make good Karate.  If your want good kata or good kumite, your kihon needs to be good.  Sensei has mentioned before that without good kihon, your kata will never be much more than memorized movements much like a dance.  He often said that he could teach any good athlete the moves for a kata but they would not be doing Karate because of they do not understand the kihon or basics.

Working toward good kihon….

Sensie had us spend most of the class working on kihon drills.  We did blocks and strikes back and forth across the dojo.  We started with simple movements such as moving forward with front punch or blocks, then we moved into combination movements with block and punches and then we spent a lot of time working on our kicks.  We did front snap kick, side thrust kick, back kick and roundhouse kick but with extra attention to the little details trying to make the movements perfect.

More kicks….

For the next drill, we got a partner and did front snap kick, side thrust kick and back kick.  We used our partner as a support and did all three kicks.

We also worked on a roundhouse drill where we kicked each other, trying to keep our heel to our butt until we point our knee at out target and then let the kick fly. The idea was to mask that the kick is coming until it is too late for the opponent to see it.

It was a really tough class with lots of hip and leg work.

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

Sensei Cieplik had us work on many details today.  He also made the point about making our own kata out of groups of kihon movements like we did below.

Clean kihon….

After the warm up, we did front snap kick with front punch but slowly.  We did the kick, held out knee up after the kick, balance, then step down with control and then punch.

Next, we worked on stepping forward with reverse punch.  We did it moving once, twice, three and four times.  Sensei had us work to make it smooth but mine certainly didn’t feel too smooth.

For the next drill we did combinations.  Rising, downward and inward block with reverse punch both forward and backward.  The key to this was to make sure that our head does not move closer or to the front when moving backward.  You don’t want to give your opponent a closer target.

Get a partner….

Sensei had us get partner.  For the first drill, our partner stood in front of us with their front hand out.  From there we grabbed their front hand, pulled hard, stepped in and punched them to the body.  The idea here was to get the feeling of using the pull hand.

Next, we did some pad drills.  Our partner held the pad and we worked on “rock on a rope” hammer fist to the pad.  The idea was to have our arm act as a rope attached to the shoulder and our hand act as a rock attached to the rope which would allow us to hit the pad with a whipping motion.   When using the hips to turn the body and letting the arm and hand whip, it is an extremely powerful movement.

Kata with rock on a rope….

Sensei had us work on Heian Shodan but he had us do the downward blocks with the feeling of the rock on a rope.  This made the kata feel much more dynamic and flowing compared to grrrrrr downward block, grrrrrr punch.

Another detail that Sensei gave us was the 3/4 stance in Heian Sandan and Jion.  When going from the front stance with spear hand into the horse stance with back fist, Sensei had us move the back leg 180 degrees around from the front stance.  From that point, we turned on the heels and end up in a straight line horse stance.

This also applies to the turn from the movement before the first outward block in Jion.  This allows the hips to turn extremely fast and strong.

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Sensei Noia tired me out with the warm up.  He had start by jogging back and forth across the dojo.  After I cannot remember how many times we jogged back and forth, Sensei had us do kicks across the dojo.  We could do any kicks we wanted to do but with three kicks for each step forward.  After the kicks came low walks back and forth across the dojo.

Use your lats not your shoulders….

We got a partner and both of us stood in a horse stance.  From there one partner would punch jodan, then chudan and gedan.  After each partner went once, one partner would punch and the other would block using rising, inward and downward blocks.

Next, we got in to a front stance in front of our partner.  As above, one partner attacked and the other did the same blocks as above moving forward and back.  The key to the this drill was to use the lats to do the block and not the arms and shoulders.

Get your pads…

We spent the rest of the class working on free sparring but with many different partners.

Sensei Noia had us work on our stances tonight.  Not just some stances, all stances.

Do those stances the correct way or not at all….

After a really hard warm we got right into the stance training.  We started with a hips forward stance and moved forward and backward across the dojo.  Next, we open the hips, blocking stance, and moved forward and back across the dojo.

After that, we added blocks and punches to the stances.  We did a lot of movements, first very slow, then a little faster and finally full speed.

For the next drill, we picked any stance and did blocks and attacks of our choice.  For example, I did a cat stance with double downward block, then a front stance with double outward block, then a front stance with ridge hand and whatever others I could think of that we don’t do too often.

End with some kata…

For our first kata, Sensei had us a kata in mirror image.  I did Heian Yondan.  then we did head kata, where we do the entire kata in our head breathing for each movement but not moving our body.  We ended with an all out 100% kata of our choice and then most of us limped to line up.

I am just joking about the limping part, we crawled.