8/25/07 – Saturday Karate class.
Since I only took one class on Friday, I wanted to make it up on Saturday.
We spent most of the class working on sparring drills. We started shifting in throwing reverse punches at our partner to get warmed up. After that, we shifted in. threw a jodan reverse punch, shifted out and back in and threw a chudan reverse punch then moved to the right to punch at a different partner.
Next, Sensei had us get in to groups of three. One partner would shift in and punch, one was a target and the other would try to hit the attacker with one of those soft pool pads if we didn’t shift out fast enough. The drill did make us focus on getting out of the way after the attack but it was depending on good timing from the partner with the pool pad.
We finished up in a circle with the Sensei’s attacking us with the pool pads while we blocked.
Having my hips working better really helped me shift backwards faster than before.
8/24/07 – Friday Karate class.
I only took one class since I didn’t want to push my hips too much after my chiropractic session with Dr. Pusateri earlier today.
I did end up doing one of the drills in the earlier class where our partner would hold a pad at belt level, we did a very slow side thrust kick and rested our foot on the pad and then Sensei told us to pull our foot back to the starting position very fast. I was able to retract my leg faster than ever and I didn’t have any problems getting my foot on the pad. Sensei did tell me to take it easy since he knew that the Doc told me not to go ballistic.
In my class we spent a lot of time working on stances. This was great for me since my stances were low and solid. Since my gluteus is working, I was able to lock my back leg when throwing a front punch and I was able to open my hips when when doing my blocks. It was a totally different feeling that I have not had since I started taking Karate.
When then partnered up. Sensei gave us the elastic exercise bands and had our partner place them around our hips while standing behind us. We then got in to a low stance, our partner would hold the bands and we would move forward while staying in our low stances. I was able to lock my back leg and it made my stances so much more solid. There was no bounce at all. We did a lot of repetitions going forward and then we did the same thing moving backward while paying attention to keeping our back foot planted when moving.
I was able to spend a little time with my Sensei after class and he had me do a couple of front stances with some blocks and punches so that he could see my hips working again. I also threw a high side thrust kick while holding on to the wall and even though I was leaning a bit too much, my kick was about chest height and I was able to hold it up.
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