I *almost* didn’t go to karate tonight, since duty called I had to work until the scintillating hour of 4:45 am this morning and be there for a 9:30 am meeting. All that aside, I asked myself “What Would Hartman Do?”, manned up, and hit the road.
It was a small group, only around five beginners (yellow and white belts) and five black belts. We worked on basics focused on hip and shoulder action when punching, and stance training. At one point we were working on doing front kick quickly and putting it back down without stepping forward and Sensei had everyone watch me for a few minutes, so I at least had one thing that went ok!
I couldn’t seem to find the handle for the second class, however. I could cop out and blame the lack of sleep, but by this time I was wide awake with Workout Steam and it was purely my body not cooperating with my wishes. We did some sparring combinations, and ended up focused on reverse punch then jab.
For whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to push correctly off of my back leg and as a result was extremely slow doing this combination. I was compared to dead relatives, 80 year old men, and even a pregnant yak before the class was over. At one point, I thought that I had it figured out and the angle that I bent my back leg was the culprit and that helped a little. It seems that my weight distribution in sparring stance is all horked up for some reason and I’m going to need to work on it.
I ended up across from Sensei Quinn for most of the second class and we were both having our own problems with this combinations so we worked on it a little after class together. I feel like my body dynamics aren’t this bad for a lot of other combinations, I’m going to have to work on this one until its more natural. In the end, though, I’m afraid that my sparring stance just has some problems that I’ve been able to gloss over for quite a long time with some of my speed and this just won’t stand.
Maybe I just need some sleep, or to drop this yak calf, or maybe its just more kumite training. I’m betting it is a combination of all three!
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