Exams are coming to an end over the next couple weeks and Sensei Noia Worked Kata and basics today.

Exam time  is always good for training

Even though I stopped taking exams almost 6 years ago, I always enjoy the training before the exams. We spend a lot of time working on kihon and kata.

We started out doing all five Heian katas as a warm up. We could go as fast or as slowly as we wanted but with the intention of warming up and increasing intensity as we did them. After that, we did them all again with more intensity and speed since we were warmed up at that point.  Doing the Heian katas is always a good refresher and often, a Heian kata must be performed at the Shodan exams.

Next, we worked on basics. Starting with moving forward in a front Stance with front punch, triple punch, back stance with knife hand block, horse stance with palm heel, horse stance with dropping strike from Jion, front kick with front punch, and front kick with triple punch. We followed that up with stances only, moving across the dojo doing two of the same stances and then changing to a different stance continuing to the other side of the dojo. We did the same again but this time adding hand techniques of our choice.

We worked on Taikyoku Shodan, executing each move with as much kime as possible. We did it twice again using only the left arm for one and right arm for another. One more time using both arms with all the power we could produce.

Kata of your choice but make it count

We then picked the kata of our choice and worked on power. After that, we had a partner watch us do the kata and tell us when the power started to decease for two total kats. We did it again and had our partner watch for spirit. Not just mean faces but if we were really into the fight and focused on what we were doing.

We then did one more kata trying to keep all that we just worked on in the kata. It was to supposed to be the all out, best of the night and then Sensei asked if anyone could have done better and for them to do one more kata if they felt the last wasn’t their best. Only one person stood off to the side, ya, you guessed it was me, because I felt that doing the kata once more would only be anti-climactic. I felt that the last kata I did was one of my best and I had little left in my legs to do one more and I knew that it would not be better than the last kata I did.