2009 Workout #40: At long last, kumite!

Tonight’s workout was great!  We started off with our combination of the month: stepping forward in fudo-dachi with a vertical knifehand with the opposite hand, then two punches (like Sochin), then stepping back into fudo dachi with the same three techniques.  From there, it was rear leg front kick stepping straight back (again, like Sochin) only when you land you throw a jab with the front hand.  After the jab, you sweep with the front leg.  As the sweep completes, we did a geidan punch going down on the back knee.  After that, you recover back to fudo-dachi and perform a downward block.  We did about 20 of those, and it really gets the sweat going!

After that, we moved on to three time attack, then one-time attack, and finally jyu-ippon free sparring.  It was the same style as our Shodan test, which one side calls the attack and then goes at their leisure.  I landed a few side thrust kicks, including one on Sensei Tarrant that I felt pretty good about.  It was a lot of fun, very relaxing.

We had a few new students tonight… one was a green belt that was returning after a decade away from the dojo.  He brought with him his eight year old son for his first class.  It was fun to watch the learning process.  Sensei Tarrant had several of the black belts take turns showing them a few techniques, I got tapped to do downward block reverse punch and rising block reverse punch.  I also taught them kiai for good measure, because it was far too quiet in there.  The little kid was really outgoing with the kiai’s, surprisingly so.  I think Dad had showed him some things prior to coming to class because he was picking it up pretty fast considering it was his first night.

In all, it was a good time!