2008 Workout #56: Good times with body action (no, not that kind!)

Tonight’s workout was well paced for my energy level.  The first class was basics and stance training, mostly in place without a lot of moving.  I was able to work up a sweat but I wasn’t totally exhausted.  The second class consisted of some body shifting drills, and I think they were very timely seeing as how I’ve been trying to figure out how to get more to the sides as I spar.

Most of us at our dojo have a tendency to go straight back when we’re being attacked.  Academically, we know that we’re not supposed to do this but instead shift quickly to the side out of the way of the oncoming attack, but in practice we mostly freak out and go running straight back.  Tonight,

shotobushi

 ran us through our paces in such a way that we had digestible drills that we can take to actually work on doing the correct style of body action.

There were several “light bulb” moments of understanding for me, I can tell when I’m doing this correctly and when I’m not.  The next step is practice until it becomes natural, which includes trying to apply it in free sparring whenever possible.  Much skeletal damage will be my reward for such experiments, but this is the life of a karateka!

I’m looking forward to meeting up with

shadowbushi

 and

kuro_obi

for more practice of these drills and concepts.