2009 Workout #46: Blocking time with Sensei Yaguchi!

Tonight I decided to venture down to Denver to see Sensei Yaguchi.  It was a small class (just five of us) so we got a lot of one-on-one attention.  Sensei was in a blocking mood (and a teaching mood) which meant we got long descriptions of things that I hardly could understand, followed by some examples that I could understand.  Much of his direction was around using body action to misdirect an attack, but he emphasized form has to be correct.  The elbow, the fist, the path of the block all had to be there for it to work right.

We did a combination to showcase a bunch of blocks that he wanted to work on: step back and inward block with the opposite arm, step forward and with the same hand to rising punch, then stepping back with knifehand block, then pull the back leg back and through to the opposite 45 degree angle doing tiger mouth block (basically the block from the start of Nijyushiho but with a grasp as the hand finished moving), and ended the combination with reverse punch.

Sensei Yaguchi walked around asking what the striking surface of the rising punch was.  Most everyone indicated the back of their knuckles, but he was insistent that the proper striking surface should be indicated with only one finger along the ridge of the knuckles.  Too far back, he said, was backfist strike.  He then proceeded to demonstrate proper rising punch form by doing five of them on my chin.  Fun.

We tried this combination with partners, and finished up the class with the kata Jiin.  I hadn’t done that kata in a long time, but Sensei was watching me and at one point said “good!” so I must not have been too far off.  I’m going to make it down to Denver more often next year if possible, I really had a good time tonight!