I am typing this from the comfort of my recliner that I always look forward to after a hard class. Even though my recliner is one of the few places that I can get really comfortable, today’s class is making my favorite chair uncomfortable. Even my fingers hurt and just about everything thing else except for, well I guess everything hurts. Enough of my complaining, it’s Karate class, not knitting.
Kata and squats
For the warm up, Sensei Noia has us do each Heian kata with 10 squats after each one. We had to option of doing the katas the normal way or mirror image and I choose mirror image because my mind was fresh and clear today. This was a good warm up and it started to prepare us for what was coming next.
Get a partner and hold your stance
Sensei had all the brown belts find a black belt for a partner and stand across from the them. We started in a horse Stance with each student counting for 10 punches. 10 students counting 10 punches is 100 punches while standing in a horse stance. The idea was to outwork your partner for this drill and all the drills to follow. This means, hold your stance and put everything you have into each technique.
After the horse stance, we moved into square stance. Knees and feet turned out but lower than a horse stance. We did 20 double punches, 20 triple punches to the stomach and then san bon zuki with face, stomach and stomach. Back stance was next for 10 on each side with knife hand block, double block and mange uke.
Next came kicks. We started in a front stance with our arms out to the sides, like holding a bucket of water in each and then we did front snap kicks, low, middle and head high for 30 with each leg keeping the stationary leg in the same place and extending the hips with each Kick.
After that, we did a drill where we laid flat on the floor, face down and brought our heel to our butt, much like retracting a front kick. Pull the heel up fast and then lower the foot back down slowly to keep from smashing our toes into the floor.
Stay low with Jion
We moved into Jion after the other drills. The object of this drill was to do each move very slowly but keep our stances at the same height during the entire kata. This is always the goal but doing it slowly and paying total attention to the stances without moving up and down between transitions is always a tough drill when each move is counted out. After the count, we did Jion again on our own, still paying attention to the stances and staying low.
Cat stance and katas
For the next drill, we went back to our partner and one of us stood in a cat stance, with our back against a wall, while the other partner did a kata of their choice. When the last person finished doing whatever kata they chose, the other partner could stand up from the cat stance. The good part is the drill on one leg was over but having two legs doubled the fun.
Finish up with squat kicks
The final drill was squat kicks. We haven’t done these in a while and my legs now remember them more than I hoped they would. We did a squat with a front snap kick, then squat again with a front snap kick on the other leg, squat with side thrust kick and squat with other leg and squat and back kick. In simple terms, squat between each kick with three different kicks. This lasted for what seemed like an eternity or maybe two minutes but most of us hobbled to line up to bow out.
Class summary:
- Each Heian kata with 10 squats after each
- Static horse, square and back stances with punches and blocks
- Front stance with three level kicks
- Stay low between moves with Jion
- Cat stance holds while your partner does a kata
- Squat kick and kick and kick
- Go home and recover
