2011 Workouts 25-30: Post Nationals…

Tonight was the first post-Nationals workout at the Arvada dojo.  We started out the class alternating around through the 15 basic Shotokan kata, and then Sensei Tarrant said that he wanted to do some of the more “showy” advanced katas that were featured at the Nationals competition.

We spent the remainder of the night doing Sochin, Gojyushiho Dai, and Unsu.

At the end of class he told us to pick one of those three to do on our own, so I picked Unsu and he did it along with me.  It felt pretty badass to do this kata 1-1 with him, even if I did terribly at it.  When class was finished, Paul B and I decided it was time to work on kumite some more so we asked Sensei Tarrant to officiate a tournament style match between the two of us.

Paul opened up with a half-point punch that he slipped under my guard.  I got him next with a low lunge punch as he came in for an attack, half-point.  I finished up the match with a front kick as he came in to attack before he could get to me, for another half-point.  Sensei Tarrant told us to do one more exchange, and I took that half-point as well with a reverse punch.

It was really fun and I hope we get to do more of this.  Sensei Tarrant took the time to tell us how each technique looked to him, power/timing/distance and what we could do to improve on it.  He even gave us some tips from his own playbook for our own personal use!  More soon, hopefully it won’t be a month between updates again!