Youth Karate - Thursday, April 23rd, 2015

Private lesson with one student on Thursday, plus a brief visit from a new prospect.

We did the 10 with plenty of explanations, then moved into rear leg roundhouse kicks to pads, moving up and down the room. While we had the pads out, we did a little turning backfist, starting with the crane stance one, then the mobile one.

Then we worked on rank things - Kata and SD. We went over a lot of detail on Wan Su, and made some changes on the challenge. The SD was a lot of takedowns, and I thought they made good improvement in our session.

Very productive and fun class.

Adult Karate Class Monday 4/20/15 - Sensei Angus Reid leading

Adult Karate Class Report 4-20-15

Angus Reid leading, 5 other students attending

Had an excellent and dynamic class with some very enthusiastic folks who were game to try some new moves. We warmed up with the 10 and standing kicks, then paired up for trapping hands/joint locking/ shadow sparring. I met new/returning student Justin for the first time, who had been a brown belt some years ago before a lengthy hiatus. My impression was that though there is some memory/recognition of the building blocks and some surviving instincts, he will pretty much have to relearn his skills from the ground up. 

We then moved to the barre to do work on the back side of the body, with a progression that built up to the wushu-style butterfly kick. We started with straight-leg swings, swinging each leg back and up while keeping the shoulders and upper body upright and the hips straight to the barre. Subsequently we added a little jump, a switch, then repeated it away from the barre coming out of a bending leg, and then all attempted it with the full dynamic movement, swooping the shoulders down and then up with the kick to drive the body into a flat spin relative to the floor. Cherie was the standout star, pretty much getting an impressive butterfly kick on her first try. Mike also did really well. The difficulty for those who didn't quite get it was keeping the forward-facing-back-kicking body position when adding the twist - it tended to instinctively kick out to the side, breaking the line of momentum. 

Focusing then on back strengthening/active flexibility, we did a 2-person exercise on the floor, with the stretcher being pulled into an arch, and then holding as close as possible to the arched position (lying on the belly) for three seconds before lowering to the ground. Finished off with stretching. I worked some with Dylan, who has a huge amount of tension in his upper back. These sorts of exercises would be really good for him. 

Youth Karate - Thursday, April 16th, 2015

Four students on Thursday, and Ron assisting.

Started with a very quick ten, then broke off into partners, white belts with an upper rank. We practiced the defensive side kick to pads, discussing pivots and the knee turning over the fence.

After a water break, we came back to practice forms. Ron started out with the white belts and me with the upper ranks. We worked for a while, then Ron took the upper ranks for some self defense practice, focusing on intensity and composure. I continued with Nihanchi with the white belts.

We ended with a bit of a tricky drill for the white belts - angling off against a sparring side kick and coming back in for a backfist. I think everyone had fun though.

Monday night classes, 4/13/15 - Sensei Jeff

There were 5 of us in the room for the arnis class.  The class was led by Phil and also had Rob, Ron, Jack, and myself present.  We ran through some warm ups and spent a good deal of time working on various joint locking drills, including the unfriendly handshake as well as a long lost roland rivera drill.


There were 5 of us for the karate class as well.  Ron, Cheri, Mike, Justin, and myself.  We started off with the 10 as well as some multi-direction kicking followed up by some shadow sparring with a partner for warm up.  We moved in to some work on trapping hands and followed it up with some SD and some more work on the unfriendly hand shake.  We ended with the class with a run through the forms.  It was a very relaxed, yet also very productive energy to the class.

Monday night karate, 4/6/15 - Sensei Jeff

There were 4 of us training.  We did some warm ups as well as some application work on nihanchi.  We moved in to working on some basics for the oriental backfist that I had observed from watching one of the DVD's of a Saturday class and also branched off in to the hammer fist / inside forearm block as well.  Great progress from everyone and a very involved energy in the room.

Yang Tai Chi: Master James Fu Qing Quan

World Tai-Chi Day 2015 - April 25th GCC

Tung Hu Ling Push Hands

Great posts Sensei Jeff

Thanks for the very informative posts on regular classes at the Studio and the special class at Eaglebrook...With photo's too!! Awesome stuff Jeff!! Keep up the great work.....

Thursday night classes, 4/2/15 - Sensei Jeff

Staff class - It was Colleen, Seth, and myself for the staff class.  We worked on the first da lu as well as some of the basics for part 6.  We made some great progress, though I think I tried to hit on too many different basics within the techniques to really let the whole amount of the class sink in effectively.  It was mainly me trying to pass on as much as possible, but got a bit carried away.  Again, great work from Colleen and Seth though.


Karate class - We had 6 for the karate class, Simon, Seth, Cheri, Justin, Adam, and myself.  We spent the first part of the class with the 10 and a fair amount of stretching.  We then moved on to some pad work for the roundhouse, crescent kick, hook kick, and thrust kick.  Everyone was very involved in drills and made good progress.  We ended with forms.  While working with Adam, he had made it to half way through nihanchi.  I had made a comment about the second half being the same as the first and gave him the first couple movements, but then he very methodically and slowly finished the form by taking the movements from the first side and applying them to the second side.  It was missing some finer details, though he made it all the way in one try, which was quite amazing by itself!  I promoted Adam to white belt at the end of class for making it through his first month of training.  Great class!

Eagle Brook class, 4/1/15 - Sensei Jeff

Jack and I went to Eagle Brook to run a karate class for a group of students' home night.  We had 8 students in the room as well as their teachers Emily and Adam, who mainly observed.  We started out with a discussion about proper respect and how to approach the training.  We continued this in to talk about symbolizing the attitude and had Jack and myself each demonstrate a karate form.  We then moved in to an abbreviated set of the 10 and began working on a few different basics in preparation for the spear block.  After the drills, we put a scenario together with Jack and I being the attackers for the students.  We ended with some partner work on the snap kick and took a few questions at the end of class.  There were lots of smiles and great energy through the majority of the class.

Monday night karate, 3/30/15 - Sensei Jeff

We had 4 in the karate class, Ron, Mike, Cheri, and myself.  Given the group we ran a large number of trapping hands drills with various partners and moved in to some sinawali boxing drills.  We ended the class working on basics from sieuchen.  It was a great class with some very aware training taking place.

T T Liang Tai Chi Sword

Liu Bin style Bagua Zhang