Fu Zhong Wen - Tui Shou

Thursday night classes, 3/26/15 - Sensei Jeff

It was Seth, Colleen, and myself for the staff class.  We did a lot of work on the broad sword form.  We are all getting close to the end and were able to get some fundamentals in.  Great work, though I managed to stab through my gi pant leg.  Plenty of laughs for that, though probably mainly because I didn't actually hit my leg.  We then moved on to working on the da lu and some horizontal push hands drills in preparation for the dance.  Great work and energy.


We had 6 for the karate class, including Colleen, Jack, Dylan, Seth, Cheri, and myself.  We did an abbreviated version of the 10 and focused the entire rest of the class on SD.  I hadn't meant to spend so much time on one topic, though everyone was making great progress and the mindsets stayed in a very productive mode.  Lots of smiles and laughing helped with that.  Great energy in the room.

Thanks for the great posts Sensei Jeff and Colleen!

I really appreciate to posts. It's wonderful to hear first hand the great experience everyone is having. The learning curve is exponential with high level teaching.
Jeff, focusing on the kicking aspect of AKS is absolutely essential and takes more work than the upper body techniques to obtain and maintain. Especially good for the youth and young adult classes.
Thanks again and keep the posts comin'

Sifu

Saturday classes, 3/14/15 - Sensei Jeff

It was just Mike and I today for the morning staff class.  We spent the majority of the class on the dance.  We were able to work on a large portion of basics and concepts through the entire dance.  It was great working with Mike and we were able to touch on a large number of topics that he took to pretty well.


We had a good gathering for the t'ai chi group.  We started with our normal run of the warm-ups followed by some meditating.  We did some extremely detail oriented work on the basic stepping where I drew some diagrams for.  Many of the students said that they received some details they didn't know, forgot in the past, or received clarification on.  Good progress was made by all.  We then moved on to either working on the form, the yang da lu, or the dance.  We ended with the form.  Good energy from all in the room.


We also had good groups for both the youth karate classes.  Sensei had the first class start off with the students each running through one of the 10 exercises, though we had more students than exercises.  I had the group run through different variations of the roundhouse, including the rear leg, low/high, and jumping.  Most everyone seemed to have fun with the jumping.  We ended with some partner shadow sparring, focusing on a few different ideas, including proper hand positions and movement.


We started the second class with some trapping hands and moved in to some forms and SD work.  The ranks worked in groups for both forms and SD and were very productive while Sensei, Ron, and I helped out.  We moved on by bringing the technique "sumo" back from the retired list and ended with padwork of each pairings choice.  Through many of these drills, Cheri ended up working with Luke and Zephyr, which she did a great job keeping them focused and on task.  Great work by all.

Thursday classes, 3/12/15 - Sensei Jeff

It was just Colleen and I for the staff class today.  We focused primarily on the dance, specifically part 5.  Colleen was able to get a decent feel for the first half of this part, especially as it was mainly new material.  I also get a fair amount of work out of this, as teaching my good side from my secondary side has been a very interesting experience.  Much insight gained along with a number of my own questions.


We had 8 for the adult karate class including myself.  This is the second Thursday in a row with those numbers and has been fantastic for the energy in the room.  We started with some warm-ups and strengthening drills.  Given the group, we had a good focus on our basic punching/blocking/crescent stepping.  We moved in to a couple of SD techniques involving the pendulum sweep and the take down from hollow out, just from a backhand instead of a knife.  Many folks are still having some difficulty getting the correct feel of the disruption needed in the pendulum sweep, but I also think we had some great progress made.  We ended the class again with work on our forms.  Great energy from everyone in the room.

Monday classes, 3/9/15 - Sensei Jeff

We had 4 for the arnis class that was led by Luke.  We spent a large portion of the class playing around with various applications and joint locks coming from empty hand anyo 2.  Luke also encouraged a fair amount of playing around and discovering of what you can find out of similar scenarios.  It was a fun and productive class.


We also had 4 for the karate class as well.  Ron, Mike, Gorgui and myself were in the room together.  We started off with some warm-ups and then went in to a good amount of work with the side kick.  We started off with focus pads and practiced getting the proper line of power in the kick.  We then moved on to doing the kick to the standing bags and trying to get the correct line and penetration to get the bag to slide back and not rock back.  Mike and Gorgui did well with the awareness, but had some difficulties with the actual application.  Good progress was made by everyone though.  From there we used the bags for some bag drills, and eventually translated them in to partner work up and down the room.  The group kept moving throughout the class and had great energy.  We ended with a little work on forms.

Youth Class - Thursday, March 12th, 2015

Great class today. I had two of my regulars, Christopher and Josephine, and also Tucker and Djbril, who I haven't seen in a while. We did the ten exercises and then went right into form practice. We started out together with Nihanchi, then broke off. I had Tucker help the white belts while Djbril and I added a new move to Seiuchin, then I worked with Tucker while everyone did some solo practice.

We did a little leg warm up with some basic thrust kicks, and then tried some jumping thrust kicks to pads. Cristopher and Josephine caught on very quickly and the kicks looked great all around.

We didn't have much time at the end of class, but I thought Double Knee tied in really well with the theme of jump kicks, so we tried it out a few times.

Great energy in the room and I think everyone had fun.

Saturday classes, 3/7/15 - Sensei Jeff

We had Jack, Phil, Mike, Seth, and myself present for the staff class today.  We did a great deal of work on a push-hands drill that Sifu had shown me a while back.  We had some great work on the drill getting some great mind involvement on body positioning and direction.  We ended with Seth and Mike working on karate forms while Jack and Phil worked with the sword.  I bounced back and forth to help both groups out.  Great folks to work with.


The T'ai chi class also went quite well.  We worked on some of the circling techniques we had the previous week and built upon them a great deal.  The information was taken in much better this week than the previous week, so we were able to add both cloud hands and brush knee variations of the circles.  There was great partner work going on and plenty of smiles.  We ended with the group form for most of us and had Mike working with Seth while Jack worked with Steve.


Sensei led through the first youth karate class.  Unfortunately I got caught up in assisting folks in need to the point that I don't remember many of the specifics of the class. As always with Sensei's classes though, I know the energy levels were high.


Jack took the lead for the second youth class while Sensei filmed the brown belts going through their forms in the back of the room.  We had a run through the 10 with some basic punching and blocking added in to the mix.  We had a very SD heavy class that moved well through the material and kept everyone very involved in what they were doing. 


Very good energy levels throughout the entire morning and a pleasure to be in the room.

Thursday night classes, 3/5/15 - Sensei Jeff

It was just Sensei and I for the first half hour of the staff class, so we ended up discussing specifics and necessities of the upcoming testing on 4/18.  Seth came in after a little while, so we worked on his broad sword form.  I still have difficulties with the sequence on this form myself, though I have been able to work a number of different basics and principles with him to bring the quality up.


We had a great group for the adult karate class.  Sensei took lead of the class with him, Simon, Dylan, Seth, Cheri, Adam, Justin, and myself all present.  We started off with some basic blocking, punching, and crescent stepping.  We worked some pad work for hand techniques as well as a thrust kick drill up and down the room.  We moved in to an arm bar with a reversal drill to end the class.  Very high energy and an excellent group to work with. 

Monday night adult karate, 3/2/15 - Sensei Jeff

We had a small but interesting group for Monday's class.  Cheri was there training as well as Adam Luker for his first official class as well as Justin Peterson-New coming back from an 8 year break.  I'm pretty sure I still had hair when Justin stopped training! 
We started the class off with a run through the 10 exercises as well as some shoulder exercises and stretching.  We had a run through some standard vertical punching and blocking for review.  We moved in to the wallace roundhouse drill and then in to pad work.  We worked a couple of backfist exercises to work the correct energy of the technique as well as precision of the technique.  Afterwards we moved in to some rear leg roundhouse kicks and finished up with some form work.  Justin needs to re-acquire all of these.  Adam did well with the first few movements.  It was a very basic, but also very detail oriented class with a good deal of involvement from everyone in the room.  We also made sure to have a few smiles.  Great energy from everyone.

Sunday classes - 3/1/15

We had a gathering for Jack, Rob, and myself.  Jack and I were working together for a bit before Rob showed up, so we focused on the dance and did some more work with the chang manching da lu.  We then worked on some long and short power drills as well as one of the defenses against a short power push from part 5 in the dance.  Once Rob came in, Rob and Jack worked on the modern arnis disarms while I observed and through in an adjustment or two.  Jack did quite well getting Rob to learn and understand new disarms.


Adam came in for another private lesson today as well.  We started with a few warm-ups and loosening techniques to target his upper body.  We then worked on some vertical punching and middle blocking as well as adding the high block in today.  We then moved in to some crescent stepping and turning without any hand techniques, made a quick review of the snap kick, and ended with the full crash of the eagle technique.  Adam was able to take some substantial adjustments and give them the proper attention, so it was a very productive class.  Adam seems to have a great mind set for going slow and getting as much detail as he can.

Saturday morning classes, 2/28/15 - Sensei Jeff

STAFF - We had Jack, Mike, and myself in the staff class.  We primarily worked on the dance, though we segregated the chang manching da lu and focused on a number of different basic ideas and details.  Towards the end of class, I worked with Jack on his t'ai chi sword and Mike on his siuechen.


T'AI CHI - We had a good group for the t'ai chi class.  We started with a run through the warm-ups and some standing meditation.  I wanted to continue our work on some of the two person drills we had done the previous week by introducing the opposite circle.  I started off with some basic shifting drills and a review of some of the drills we had done the prior week.  Many of the newer folks were having a difficult time being clear about the weight shifts and the directions their arms were moving in.  We slowed things down and never did make it to the new material.  It was still a very productive training.  We ended with a run through the form.


KARATE - Sensei led through the karate classes.  We had a good sized crew for both.  We worked on a large variety of things, including some line work, techniques practiced in a circle, SD with progressive step, forms, 3 person groups for pad work, and more.  The group stayed engaged throughout the classes and had good energy.

Thursday night classes, 2/26/15 - Sensei Jeff

We had Ron, Colleen, Seth, and myself in the staff class.  Being a bit out of sorts, I stayed off to the side as much as I could and through out suggestions as they came up.  I did work with Seth a good deal on his broad sword form.  There was good energy in the class.


Ron lead the class (thanks Ron!) so that I could go rest, though I stuck around for a little while.  Ron started out with some stance work drills that lead in to some partner/shadow sparring drills.  The class moved in to some kicking drills and then in to forms before I skipped out.  Great energy in the room.

Monday adult karate, 2/23/15 - Sensei Jeff

We had a private today with just Mike and I.  We did a few warm ups and some light stretching.  We worked a great deal on the form and some more loosening and relaxation techniques.  We then focused on some leg techniques, focusing on getting snappy retractions with the roundhouse and snap kicks.  We also did some very detail oriented SD work.  We made some great progress on a number of basics and concepts.