Sunday morning group 2.23.14 Bagua Zhang and American Karate (+playlist)

Sunday morning group 2.23.14 tai chi solo form - left side (+playlist)

Deerfield Academy T'ai Chi class 2/23/14 - Sensei Chaisson

I had a private lesson today with only one student showing up.  We made the best of it and worked a good deal on the form once we were done with the warm ups and meditation.  Currently in the process of negotiating a spring schedule to continue to teach at DA.  I'm hoping to increase the frequency of the classes there.

Deerfield Academy T'ai Chi class notes - Sunday 2/9/14 - Sensei Chaisson

 I'm up to 6 for my class size today.  It felt a little different today due to the size though.  I didn't feel like I had as much control over the group due to everyone being a beginner and there being that many of them.  Something I'll have to keep an eye on.  We went through the warm ups, did some standing meditation and moved on to some arm circling drills for coordination and some stepping drills.  We ended the class working on the beginning of the form. 

Saturday Youth/Adult Karate class notes - 2/8/13 - Sensei Chaisson

We spent most of the class on pad work after the warm ups, crunches, and push ups.  We worked forward leg and rear leg roundhouse kicks as well as crescent kicks, elbows, and hook punches.  We ended working on forms.  Sensei and I handled the class together.

Adult Karate class notes - Thursday 2/6/14 - Sensei Chaisson

 We did some minor warm ups and harmony sparring to begin the class.  We then moved on to doing some sparring drills back and forth that had each person attacking or defending as well as some angle changing and countering.  We moved on to having one person attacking as quickly as they could and the other moving backwards and trying to defend.  We ended on a few rounds of regular free sparring.  Jack, Colleen, Ron, Scott and myself were there, and had 8 total.

Great showing of Black Belts yesterday for the testing of our newest group of Yellow & Blue belts

Adult Karate class notes - 2/3/14 - Jack Fox

My first Adult Karate class on Monday went very well. We warmed up with harmony sparring before the 10 exercises. I broke up the 10 with basics such as vertical punch and palm heels from a horse stance. Then we worked on low SD kicks (lotus, angle, back) without putting the foot down in between kicks. I then formed 2 groups of 3 where 2 people held body shields on either side of the third person. The drill involved various SD combos, ending with another person holding focus pads in front of the person for improvised SD techniques. The class seemed to like the creativity component of this drill. Then we got into pairs for some groundwork. One person remained on the floor swiveling and kicking back their partner who tried to tap their head by moving around to different angles. We also worked for a nice portion of the class on trapping hands. We transitioned to 4 count where I had partnerships try the drill without a limb (arm or leg for example). The last version I tried was with eyes closed-we slowed down considerably. I liked how this changed the drill. I finished the class with static stretching. Overall a very productive class since everyone put in such good effort.