2007 Workout #27: A little something new…

Tonight we were trusted with the care and feeding of the class. led the class through a long bout of strengthening and stretching, then Garls-san took the white and yellow belts into the other room to work on kata.

I was charged with taking the rest of the class through some kata, but I decided to do it in the vein of Hartman’s House of Pain and add a twist. I split the class into two groups and had one group do katas by my count. While they were doing kata. The rest of the class was told to do a certain strengthening exercise to the same count.

Every two katas, we would switch groups to let both groups do the strengthening. We made it through Taikyoku Shodan, all the Heians, and Tekki Shodan. The strengthening exercises were Japanese situps, tricep dips, incline push ups, and skydivers. Everyone was glowing at the end of it, and I was pleased with the results.

For the second class, led us through the Heians again, with emphasis on holding tension at the end of every technique. The first five techniques of each kata were easy, but after that it got really difficult. You can really tell when techniques weren’t connecting in to the center, I need to do more kata in this fashion.

After that, ran the class through further sparring drills relating to distance from your partner. It was fun and it felt good to spar a little after all that kata. All in all it was a great night. Much pain and much karate stuff was accomplished, I’m looking forward to more of it on Saturday!