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Sensei Cieplik had us work on some very specific drills today.  It’s all in the details.

Slide the front foot into a back stance, not stomp….

After our warm up, Sensei had us spend a lot of time working on our back stances.  When moving forward in a back stance, Sensei had us turn our front foot out first and then slide the back foot forward.  If, what is going to be come the back foot is already turned, the weight is already on that leg and the other leg can smoothly slide forward.

Keep your attacks inside the body….

Sensei has said this before but I guess I didn’t really understand what it meant until today.  When doing an attack such as knife hand strike you should keep your hand movements inside the width of your body.  If I understood this correctly, keeping these movements inside of center will take your opponent off center and force their attack to the outside of your body.

Scare them with your foot work….

This is another thing that Sensei has said many time but it doesn’t stick for some reason.  If your foot work is strong and correct, your punches and strikes will flow.  If you legs and your hips move correctly, the hands will go automatically.

Lots of details to practice.

This was a fun class.  Sensei Noia has been working on improving our sparring skills and today was a test to see if we learned anything.

Get a partner and another partner….

We started out with a hard warm up.  Jogging back and forth across the djo, butt kicks, low walks and dynamic stretches to the front and side.

Sensei told us to get into groups of three.  One person stood in the middle and the other two were at left and right angles to the person in the middle.  For this drill, the person on the left attacked and the person in the middle blocked and counter attacked, the the person on the right attacked and the person in the middle blocked and countered again.  We spent a good amount of time working on this drill and it was a blast.  There was no chance of avoiding every attack.  They came too fast and sometimes from both partners at once even though they were only supposed to be one attack at a time.

We took a little break and did some pushups but a little different.  We did a pushup and as we went down, we put our legs out to the side and when we went up, we brought our legs back in like normal.

Spread out and get up against the wall…..

The next drill was even more challenging.  The partner in the middle stood with their back against the wall and the other two attacked, most of the time both at once.  There was no hiding from getting hit and it was extremely tiring.  I cannot even remember how many times I was hit but it was one of the most fun sparring classes that I have ever had.

We finished up with some conditioning for our abs.  We did crunches, leg lifts and v-sits.

Great class!

We had a guest Sensei today in class.  Sensei Carlos Sanchez filled in for Sensei Brien.

Constant kihon….

I have taken class with Sensei Sanchez in the past, when I was a lower rank and his classes were tough but his advanced class is a killer.  We did close to 90 minutes of non-stop kihon with about 10 minutes of non-stop kata at the end of class.

For starters, we began in a horse stance doing punches and blocks.  Then, we stood up and with each arm did straight punch, tate zuki, ura zuki and then kage zuki.  Next, we stepped left, into a horse stance and did a left handed punch, back to center with a double punch, then step to the right with a right handed punch.  We then did the same leg movements with the four punches from above.   We also did the same drill with spear hand, knife hand, ridge hand and palm strike.

We also did another drill where we started in a horse stance, then turned to the left, stepped back with the right foot and did a block with reverse punch, then we did the same movement to the right.  We did all four blocks, rising, downward, inward and outward block.  We also did a similar drill where started in a standing position and stepped into a back stance with outward block and reverse punch in both directions.

When I thought that it couldn’t get any harder, we did another drill with front snap kick, low front thrust kick, side thrust kick and low side thrust kick.  We followed that up with rising elbow strike, outward to inward elbow strike and inward to outward elbow strike like in Jion.

Next, we got a partner and hit the pads.  We started with reverse punch, then straight punch, tate zuki, ura zuki and kage zuki.  Then we worked on the three elbow strikes as above and the spear hand, knife hand, ridge hand and palm strike.

Finish up with some kata….

We finished up some kata.  We did Heian Godan, Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai.

This felt almost like an interval workout.  I would guess that we had less then five minutes total rest but it felt really good and I wouldn’t mind doing a class like this in the future.

This class was a little different for me than most.  Sensei Cieplik had me start class in the stairwell.

Kick up those stairs…

In order to improve my front snap kicks, that I seem to have been doing wrong for a long time now, Sensei had my go out to the stairwell.  From there, Sensei had me step up one, two then three stairs.  By stepping up three stairs, Sensei was able to see that I could raise my knee up almost to chest level.   Sensei then had me get into a front stance at the bottom of the stairs and do a front snap kick.  By starting with a motion as if I was walking up the stairs, I was able to kick correctly.  Sensei gave this to me as my homework.

Kihon….

For our basics, Sensei had us work on our various block punch combinations.  We did knee strike with front snap kick.  Next, we did moving forward and back with rising, downward, inward and outward blocks and reverse punch.  We also worked on front snap kick with front punch.

Kata, all the way up….

We finished class doing kata.  We started with Heian Shodan all the way to Bassai Dai.  I did what felt like the most awful Tekki Shodan of my life but that’s another story.  One thing that Sensei suggested is that I do Jion with a stick in my belt on my back.  If I learn forward or button pull, the stick will hit me in the back of the head.

It was good class and luckily for me, I have stairs at home so I can do my homework and kick up those stairs.

Sensei Noia had us work on specific kumite attacks today.

Kumite drills….

We started out working on block and counter attack.  Our partner would move in and attack and we would work at blocking and then counter attacking them.

We spent a good amount of the class working on scoring with only certain attacks.  For example, we had one drill where we could only use punches to score.  Next, we could only use chudan kicks and then jodan kicks.

Kata in the mirror….

This is a drill that I often enjoy but don’t do often.  Sensei had us do a kata of our choice in mirror image.  For my first kata, I did HeianYondan which is always one of my favorites.  After that, I did Jion.  I finished up with Bassai Dai.  If you ever want a simple challenge, do Heian Shodan in mirror image.  It really makes you think before you move.