Today’s class was full of kicking basics and many of them. Sensei Noia wants to ensure that the students who are testing, have good kicks this time and tonight was a good example of those intentions.

Let the kicks begin

We did the following basics for nearly 50 minutes:

• All from a horse stance: front punch, triple punch, rising block, inward block, outward block and downward block
• Stationary front snap kick in front stance
• Stationary front snap kick twice – one chudan other jodan and set it back behind on each kick
• Roundhouse kick the front and set it back down behind
• Hook kick to the front and set it down behind
• Side thrust kick to the front and set it back behind
• Spinning back kick then set it down behind – this was an interesting movement to say the least
• Roundhouse kick to the front and spinning back kick and set the foot down behind – this was more interesting than above

All of the above kicks were extra tough since we had to set our foot back down behind us after each kick. It requires a lot of body control especially when you are doing kicks other than front snap kick.  Keeping from falling over is one important aspect that I was struggling with.

All of the following kicks were done moving forward:

• Front kick and side kick to the front
• Front kick, side kick, back kick, roundhouse kick set it down behind
• Front kick, side kick, back kick, roundhouse kick, hook kick, set it down behind
• From horse stance, the follow three moves, step across, step behind and shuffle up side thrust kick
• Step behind side thrust kick – we did these again because they are extra strong kicks
• Moving forward with roundhouse kick and spinning back kick

After all the kicks, from a front stance, we did moving forward, rising block with reverse punch, inward block with reverse punch, outward block with reverse punch and downward block with reverse punch.

Next came a quick round of one step sparring and then we did two katas to end the class.

More kicking is needed, at least for me

I can’t speak for the other students since 90% are a third to a quarter of my age, but these all these kicks were very hard for me to execute with clean form. Except for the front snap kicks and back kicks, most of them felt very off balance and even worse once I started to get tired.

With that said, classes like these really make me realize that I need to practice my kicks more often.