Thurs 3/8 & Sat 3/10 Lily

Thursday:
Colleen and I taught together.  A very small group, both Simons Jack were there.  I started with the 10, followed by a little shoulder stretching and splits.  I did some core work as well, stressing how core strength is important in martial arts.

I continued by having everyone partner up and work with elbows to the pads.  We did forward elbows, elbows dropping down and elbows coming up.  We did elbows to the back with the standing bags.  We followed this with a little practice with drop knees.  I talked about how these should really be used in extremely rare and dangerous situations because they can do such damage.  We finished with some circle self-defense.  This was Simon's (white belt, not sure of his last name) first time with circle self-defense and he didn't do too bad, except for using punches instead of palm heals.

Saturday:
Both classes were big.  I helped with the kids class, and taught a bit of the second.  Second class I started with the 10 and did some split stretches (forgot core, darn!).  Followed that with jogging around the room and the stance work and high knees.  I finished up with the techniques in a circle.  I came up with two combos; palm heal, elbow, knee and upward elbow, lotus kick and knee.  The first I liked better and flowed better.  Upward elbows are a bit tricky, but I wanted to try something a bit different.  It comes out of Wan-su kata.

I'll be back around May 20th.  I'll miss you guys, but thanks for a great week of practice before I head back to school.

Below - I've posted several more AKS Self-Defense techniques

I filmed Lily during her rank testing in AKS performing her SD (Self-Defense) techniques. It's an attempt to publish the tech. that we are currently using. I'll go back and Label and number them once I have them all uploaded. Feed back is always helpful;.)

Saturday Youth Karate 12/11/10 Lily

Hi guys. It was great to be in class this week since I've been missing a lot with school/college work.

Today in the first class we did the ten, but took a break to get some jogging etc. around the room to wake the kids up. Then we did some circle work with back fist and cross. We partnered up and did some leg stretches, then did some snap kicking practice. I was with Luke and he is still trying to get the idea of the kick, which makes sense since he's only a white belt. He has trouble balancing on one leg for long periods, and tends to use his whole leg rather than just snapping the lower leg. When I reminded him he started to get it. We did some roundhouse kick work as well and finished with katas.

In the second class Jack and Scott led the ten. Then we did some shadow boxing, which gave me a nasty headache for some reason. When we took a break I drank a bunch of water, and I'd had tea and a bagel for breakfast, so that wasn't the problem. Anyway, then we did some stepping and punching practice. I tried getting my timing right with landing the foot and the punch or block, but it wasn't really clicking which was frustrating. Then we did some partner work with one person pushing on the other as we switched directions with the stance. That was interesting. I had to stop after that because my head was killing me. Everyone else worked on the joint lock series.

I'm better now, thankfully. :)