2006 Workout #56: Just the nidans again…

Tonight it was just the nidans… Oedewaldt, , Garls, McCabe, and myself. We split the first class up into belt ranked groups and worked on topics befitting the belt rank group that we were assigned. I got the green belt and purple belts, and I elected to work on hikite (pull back), proper hip usage, and intent when performing techniques.

The class went very well. All three of my students appeared to make visible improvements so I consider it a success. I even got some spirit and intensity out of them during this time. It is an interesting thing to watch a group progress over a small interval of time and be able to see bits of improvement. It’s also neat to behold when they actually “get” it. One of my purple belts asked a good question about how to use hips and not have the stance break down, and I think she realized what she was doing improperly because she fixed it for the rest of the class without too much urging. That’s awesome, and I’m really proud of her for working hard at it.

The second class was “fun with kata and some sparring,” as described by Oedewaldt. Each black belt selected a kata and we lead the class in that kata once slowly and once a little quicker. Oedewaldt went first, and picked Kanku Sho. He gave some pretty in-depth explanation about some of the techniques, and since it was brown and black belts only we discussed a few of the variations. It was interesting stuff. selected Sochin (I was happy to let him lead it), and since Oedewaldt didn’t allow repeats I opted for my other favorite kata, Empi. McCabe rounded out that portion of the class with Jion, and much fun was had by all. Most of the brown belts followed along for all of the kata even though I know most of them hadn’t been through Kanku Sho or Sochin.

For the last 10 minutes of class, we did some 3 to 5 time sparring while rotating partners around. I had some fun with before the night was over. I always love lightly tenderizing brown belts. 🙂

I did manage eleven Sochin: seven before class, two in between first and second class, and two as part of “fun with kata.”

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Sochin Counter
Accomplished / Goal == Percent Complete
689 / 2000 == 34.45%
Average Kata per Workout: 14.06
Estimated Completion Workout: 143
Workouts that gained more than 1%: 16