If you move from the shoulders, the kick will not be good – 12/15/11

One of things that I enjoy about taking classes with Sensei Cieplik is that he often revisits concepts or techniques after a period of time based on what he sees us doing in class.  Today, after doing our warm up kicks, he had us work on dynamic tension.

Dynamic tension….

From a front stance, pull with the front leg and push with the back leg until you cannot hold it and then let the kick fly.  Try to think of this concept like pulling a rubber band from both ends.

With the above in mind, we did many front snap kicks with front punch.

The next drills we did were from seiza (sitting on the floor with the buttocks resting on the heels.  The first drill was moving from seiza to kneeling position.  For the next drill, the idea was to lean back from the kneeling position and then straighten back up.  Some of us did a few kicks from seiza but my knees told me don’t even think about it.

The next drill was a “salad bowl” exercise.  From a front stance, the idea was to shift our weight on to our back leg, drop the hip and then spring forward and jab.  The jabbing motion will go on its own if this is done correctly.  This movement can be compared to the way a tiger loads up all of its weight on its back legs and then springs or launches forward.

Watch your partner very close….

For the next drill, we partnered up.  The idea behind this drill was to watch our partner either make them attack or catch their tell ( showing them prepare to attack.  It could be something as simple as them raising an eyebrow or seeing their shoulders raise up just before they begin the attack.

We finished up class with kata.  We did all of the Heian katas, Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai.  A key point that Sensei made was for us to present ourselves and be sure to have good posture before we start our kata and all the way through.  Good posture usually means better technique.

This was the last Thursday class of 2011 and I can say this was the best year of Karate classes yet and I am sure that 2012 will be even better!

Hit the pad but no punches – 12/13/11 – Tuesday Karate class

For the last Tuesday class of 2011, Sensei Noia gave us class full of kata, basics and good, old fashioned pad hitting.  Hitting stuff almost always makes for a fun class and today was a fun class.

Warm up with kata….

We started out doing Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan, Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan and Heian Godan.  I always enjoy this type of warm up.

After the kata warm up, we moved on to basics.  We started by moving forward and back across the dojo with 5 different stances.  Those stances included, front stance, back stance, horse stance, cat stance and cross leg stance.  This was stance only drill with no arm movements.  Next, we did the same stances but added block and reverse punch.  We followed that with one count with stances and two techniques of our choice.   For example, we would do a front stance with a rising block and a back stance with knife hand block.

Hit the pads…

We spent the rest of the class hitting the pads.  The idea was to hit the pads without using a punch.  For the first drill, we could open hand techniques such as knife hand, ridge hand, back hand and palm strike.  The next drill let us use hammer fist and back fist.  For the last drill, we could use our elbows both horizontal or vertical and draw hand strike behind us.

Whenever we do drills like these, not using the common techniques, it always makes for an interesting class.