2006 Workout #119: 220 pounds of pure awesome…

Tonight was a great medium sized class, our very own Professor taught an “outside the box” first class on self defense, focused on applying techniques found in different kata. Everyone (and I mean everyone) really enjoyed this class. It was laid back, entertaining, interesting, and fun. I’ll leave it to him to fill in the details, suffice it to say it was very well done.

Only upper rank remained for the second class so we had open swim time. Since I was feeling under the weather, I was easily convinced to work with and Dobbleaire-san on side kick instead of running down more Sochin. It was nice to take a break, and in doing so I allowed my mind to explore one of my favorite techniques again.

I think I learned as much focusing on this kick again as my two students did. Shortly after the second class started and we did a few side thrust kicks, I started thinking about the path of the kick related to the motion of the hips. It struck me that the usually prescribed instruction to slam your hip over is correct, however at intermediate to upper ranks the focus should be the same as my Sochin: to generate impact power. To do so and to help Sarah with her flexibility, I had them use their hip in a much shorter “turn over” motion, which ended up feeling more like a forward hip thrust as the kick was thrown. This lead to more of a straight line of energy as the path of the kick goes out, which not only looked a lot sharper but seemed to make the kick more powerful as I watched my two wards execute their kicks. I also helped them focus on their chambering and how to get the most out of moving forward in kiba-dachi by using the appropriate pressure in the ankles and knees.

conjectured that I may have found a valid topic for a thesis years down the road, which is why I’m capturing some of the detail here. I think he may be right. 🙂

Didn’t get to any Sochin tonight, but that will change soon!

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Sochin Counter
Accomplished / Goal == Percent Complete
1885 / 2000 == 94.25%
Average Kata per Workout: 16.83
Estimated Workouts Remaining: 7
Workouts that gained more than 1%: 40
Workouts that gained more then 5%: 2
Round Kick Challenge: 15 / 1000 == 1.50%