Adult Karate - Monday 1/17/12 - Dennis

Here are the notes for 

We had a high level class today.  In attendance were myself, Ron, Angus, Marcia, Colleen, Teryn, Thomas, Simon and the twins.  After the ten exercises and some stretching, we worked on knife disarms.  Then we did pad work followed by some sparring.  We switched partners every two minutes so everyone got to work with everyone else.  It was a fun class and a good workout.

 

-Dennis

Adult Karate class notes - Thursday 11.4.10 - Dennis

Adult Karate - med size advanced rank class - Angus, Jesse, Colleen, Teryn, Lily, Peter, Ian and Andrew (yellow belt)

 

After the ten exercises, I asked people to stretch on their own while I set up all the punching bags in the dojo.  First we did drills for power with the offensive forward leg inside/outside crescent kick.  Then I opened the floor to other suggestions for things to do while we had all the bags out.  I got some really good ideas from Lily and Teryn.  We did, what I thought, was a good critical distance drill where students moved from bag to bag striking each one in turn.  I asked them to set up their approach with sparring movements so that they were ready to strike as soon as they reached the proper distance.  After that, we used the bags for various types of elbow strikes.  Finally, I held a vote for what to do as a cool-down and push-hands won out over Kata.

 

The crescent kick practice didn't go as I anticipated.  Everyone had trouble getting power out of it.  The problem was always that the hip needed to open up more.  After a few drills and a lot of hard work, Ian managed to get it spot on!  I was so impressed that I had him show it to the rest of the class as an example of what I was looking for.  Andrew also made great progress and had it the second best.

 

(Note:  I'm a bit concerned that the two least advanced students had the most success.  I don't want to be teaching something that's outside the system.  I'll have to show the way I've been doing the forward leg crescent kick the next time I see you.)

(Additional Note:  I'm aware that sometimes advanced students will ignore instructions and do what they want but I'm positive that this was not the case last night.  Everyone was trying their hardest to do what I was asking for.)

 

The level of focus and participation in the room was particularly great.  Not only did I get several great suggestions for drills from the more advanced students, I was also asked many insightful questions that I thought the whole room could benefit from.  Adding to that the amount of progress that Ian and Andrew made on a very difficult technique, I couldn't have asked for a better class.

 

-Dennis

Adult Karate class notes - Monday 10.25.10 - Dennis

My goal was to help people incorporate the rear leg thrust kick into a useful combination.  It's been my experience that throwing it will almost always cause an opponent to move backward in a straight line (out of range).  An effective way for the kicker to take advantage of the situation is to immediately pursue and follow up with hand techniques.  However, I noticed that after an offensive kick, people have a tendency to lose their stance (leaning over the forward leg and reaching to punch, rather than moving the whole body forward to punch.)  We worked on some drills that I thought might help.

After warming up with some stretching and basic exercises, we worked on some blitz drills.  This included line work and pad work.  We focused on using momentum to keep moving forward.  Then we tried doing the same thing with an added thrust kick at the beginning.  The object was to get people to reset their stance as soon as the kick was finished. 

Everyone seemed to be having fun and the energy level was high.  Also, Peter was in class.  He's a purple belt.

(Sifu's note: That's Peter D. from the youth karate program...that was his first Adult class....I spoke with him yesterday at the youth karate class and he said it was a really good experience for the first time....he felt 'ready' and accepted by the group .....now that's the rights of passage in action for you!)

Dennis