Put your sparring gear on – 5/11/10 – Tuesday Karate class
For the first time in a while, Sensei had us work on some sparring drills. I was afraid that I would be really rusty but it wasn’t that way at all.
Warm up….
We started shifting across the floor and back. After that, we shifted across the floor with one, two or three attacks. Next, we shifted across the floor with as many attacks as Sensei counts. It was tough, doing multiple attacks.
Get a partner….
For the next drills, we got a partner. Sensei had us start with a single attack, then tow attacks, three attacks and four attacks with each exchange. The goal of the one partner was to score with all attacks and the other partner was to block everything. We switched partners two more times. We finished up our sparring drills with some free sparring.
Conditioning time….
Sensei had do some conditioning drills at the end of class. He started with some squat hops. We put our hands over our heads, squatted down and hopped backward and forward. After that, we did push ups, regular squats and something else that escapes me now.
We ended class with our exam kata but in slow motion.
It felt good to spar again, I am looking forward to doing more after exams are over.
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OUCH – 10/18/08 – Saturday Karate class
Sensei Plocharczyk put us through a serious conditioning class today.
The warm up was a workout in itself…
Sensei had us start with two, back and forth, runs across the gym. Next, came a shuffle back and forth across the gym. After that, 100 jumping jacks, 50 crunches and 50 squats.
Kihon…
Sensei Gatch took us through some kihon after our warm up.
We started moving back and forth doing rising block, downward block and reverse punch. We started in with the rising block and our hips open, we then turned our hips forward and then opened them again for the downward block and then turned them forward again for the reverse punch.
Next came front snap kick to the front and side thrust kick to side. Then front snap kick to the front, side thrust kick to the side and back kick to the rear.
Kata with some conditioning…
Sensei Plocharczyk had us hold our balance while others did kata. The idea was for us to hold our balance bent over at the waist with our arms out to the side and one leg straight our behind us. Then is was our turn to do kata and the others had to do the balancing.
The next exercise was one group did kata and the other group did speed squats until they finished. I was able to do 69 squats in the time it took one of our black belts to finish Kanku Dai.
The last exercise of the day…
Sensei Plocharczyk had us hold our balance with one leg up like a front snap kick, we then had to bend over and touch a pad to the floor, raise upright with a front snap kick, then hold our balance and pass the pad across to our partner. We had to do this this five times on each leg.
It was a tough class but it felt really good.
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