Saturday Karate class – 3/29/08 – Special guest Sensei.

We had a special guest today, Sensei Noia taught our class today.

We started with the normal warm up and then moved into some sparring drills. Sensei had us get into groups of four. One of us stood with our back heel touching the wall behind us and the other three attacked us. We could block but not move our feet. We were pretty much a heavy bag but with the ability to block.

After that, we paired up and worked on some free sparring drills. My legs felt loose for some reason and my front leg, front snap kick was flying easily.

Next, we took of the pads and worked on hitting some pads. Two Sensei’s and I lined up and we worked on various drills. One pad was for elbow and knee strikes, another pad was for front snap kicks and side thrust kicks and the last pad was for punches only. After everyone had a turn, Sensei made two lines and I was able to get into the line up. For this drill, we were able to use any moves that we wanted to use. I threw a few elbow strikes but my main goal was to use my hips to throw my punches and those seemed to be effective. I also threw some front snap kicks and roundhouse or two.

I really like working and the pads and it is a great change from punching that air.

Tuesday Karate class – 3/25/08 – The perfect class.

Have you ever had a Karate class that felt perfect?  Not so much that you did everything the correct way but you did everything that you think a class should be made of.  Today was one of those classes for me.

Sensei Noia had us start with kata.  Not just one kata but all katas that we know.  This meant that I did Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan, Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan, Heian Godan, Tekki Shodan and Jion.  Once I finished all of those katas, Sensei had us start at Jion and work back down to Heian Shodan.  After we finished that, he had us do one kata, our own belt rank kata, at full speed and power.

Next, Sensei had us do the block and counter part of one-step sparring without a partner.

We then moved on to hitting some stuff.  I always feel that we should hit things every now and then to see if our training is effective.  Sensei Noia brought some striking pads to class.  He had one Sensei hold a pad for elbow and knee strikes, another for kicks of any type, another for punches and two small hand pads for punching and kicking.  I am not sure but I felt that my kicks and punches to the larger pads were the most effective.  I don’t recall ever putting that much power behind a kick or a punch before and it felt really good.

We finished up class with some blocking drills.  Sensei had all of us get into a large circle.  The Sensei’s had pole shaped soft pads about two feet long.  We all stood in a fighting stance and the Sensei’s went around attacking each of us while we tried to block.

To me, class doesn’t get any better than this.

Saturday Karate class – 3/22/08 – Kata, sparring and pain.

I guess the title is a little deceiving. There was some pain involved but not bad pain.

Sensei Plocharczyk started class with a different drill. He had everyone lay on the floor, the person on the far end would stand up, shift in and out between each person on the floor and then start a new line and lay down again. After we did that, he had us get in the push up position. From there, he had us do 10 push ups, then hold in the half push up position for what seemed like an eternity. We then did five more push ups and then held the half position again and then finished up with five more push ups. My chest and arms didn’t have any trouble but my hands really hurt while doing them for some reason.

We then did kata. Sensei had all of us do kata while he watched each belt rank group do their own belt kata. When I got to my group, after I did Jion, he said that I need to rotate my hips more in the rising block with reverse punch. This is a common correction that I have been getting so I really need to get back to basics to try and correct this problem.

We then partnered up for three step and one step sparring. For some reason, my mind was off for the last couple of days. I blocked the jodan punches in the three step with inward blocks for some reason so I guess my mind really wasn’t at it’s peak. I had less trouble with my one-step but made a mistake when blocking the roundhouse kick by shifting too far to the outside and not being able to return a counter.

We then moved on to sparring drills. This felt much to me today. I didn’t any problems and for the first time in a while, I felt that my sparring was getting better. My shifting felt lighter and my hands were moving very fast. My fakes were working well and I found it pretty easy to score on my partner.

We finished up with some more conditioning work. Sensei had us hold our sparring headgear above our heads and do low walks across the gym. When we got to the far side, we did low walks back again. Each time Sensei said run, we would go to the far side and then do low walks back again.

Some of the conditioning drills were painful but it was good pain.

Friday Karate Class – 3/21/08 – Powerful pad work.

Today, I felt good.  I had a vist with Dr. Pusateri, my chiropractor and he did some good stuff to me today.  I seem to learn something new every time I see him and after I leave his office, my body feels like it’s made out of steel.

Because I was feeling good, I asked Sensei Noia if I could work off to the side since I didn’t really want to get hurt sparring again.  I ended up doing kata with my wife for about half of the class.

Sensei Noia brought some of his striking pads with today.  He had two large pads for some kicking and punching drills.  We did roundhouse kicks, punches, and elbow strikes for close to 20 minutes.  While I was holding the pad, Sensei Noia gave it five or six solid roundhouse kicks.  It was as if he had a tree trunk for leg.  While most the others kicked and some of them can kick really hard, I was able to hold the pad without moving too much but when Sensei Noia kicked it, I pushed backward even though my stance was pretty well grounded.  I realized that he was using his left leg and his right leg is normally his powerful one.  It’s always impressive to see how effective your Sensei’s Karate is but feeling it makes me see his power on a whole new level.

We also did some punches and elbow strikes to the pads and I ended up bending my right wrist.  I do not do enough pad work and I really need to punch things instead of just working on the air.  I also think I need to improve the strength of my wrists.  My forearms are strong and decent sized but my wrist are small and I think they need some hard work.

I am really looking forward to the warm weather so that I can start working outside on the makiwara again.

Thursday Karate Class – 3/20/08 – Many new moves.

We started class with a little different warm up. We did the normal front snap kicks but instead of 10, Sensei Cieplik had us do 15 with each leg. Next, we did front snap kick with back kick.

This class was different than any that I remember before. Sensei had us doing movements that I don’t remember us doing in the past. I am trying to list all of them here but I am not sure if I can remember all of them.

We did a knee strike with a back kick. This movement was different because, in order to do it correctly, we had to bend the stabilizer leg and retract the hips after the knee strike to make the back kick effective. Starting the back kick from the knee strike finish position makes the movement feel much more powerful and pushing off the stabilizer leg seems to generate a great deal of force. It was enough force to make the stabilizer leg move backward when executing the back kick.

We also worked on a movement that consisted of reverse rising block, jab and reverse punch. This movement really made me think in a different way. Doing the rising block with the back leg behind really slowed down my movements since I had to think about doing it that way. The movement did feel very powerful since the hip rotation from the reverse block to jab and back to reverse punch caused the hips to move a great deal.

We did a move where we put our leg out like a roundhouse kick, pointing to the front and pivoted on our back foot across the floor. We then did another move with the same pivot but we did the full roundhouse kick to the front.

Another interesting move was getting into a lunge position, with the back knee on the floor and the reverse hand out. From there we stood up, did a front snap and came back down into the same starting position. I was only able to do a few of them because my knees were hurting.

Sensei also talked about some interesting Shotokan history. He said that the Tekki Katas, Tekki Shodan, Tekki Nidan and Tekki Sandan were once third, second and first kyu katas. What was happening is the students front stances were

Sensei had us do something with our kicks but he wanted to hear the gi snap.  He wanted us to move with enough speed to get the pop sound when doing front snap kick, side thrust kick and back kick.

We also did a couple of conditioning exercises.  The first was from the squat position, we would put one knee to the floor and then bring it back up to the squat position, then repeat with the other leg.  The next move, which I really found useful, was stand in a bad stance, such as the the back foot pointing the wrong way and the front foot pointing to the outside.  From that bad stance, Sensei told us to compress or squeeze from the inside of our legs and pivot on the heels to put our feet in the correct place.  The compression makes the feet come into the correct position with relative ease.

We also worked on, for lack of better words, wrist flicking techniques on blocks.  The idea is to turn the hand at the wrist while doing blocking techniques.  This little flick seems to add a lot of power to the end of block.  I have been trying to do this for some time now.

We finished up class with some kata.  We did Heian Sandan, Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai.  Sensei had us think and try to apply the flicking movements in our kata.  I always like it when Sensei gives us little things to add to our kata that makes them better.

Sensei also gave us a little history.  I hope that I am recalling this correctly.  He said that the Tekki katas were once third, second and first kyu katas.  Tekki shodan was for third kyu, Tekki Nidan for second kyu and Tekki Sandan for first kyu.  The problem was that spending three full ranks in a horse stance was hurting the front stance, back stance, one and three step sparring and kumite for those students.  Instead, two blackbelt katas, Jion and Bassai Dai were given to the students to allow them to prepare for their upcoming Shodan examination and promotion.

It was a great class!