01.28.06 - Saturday Training

Reviewed Items:

1. Warm-up drills
2. Step-drags, Step-thru & other foot maneuvers
3. Lead leg (foot replacement) roundhouse kicks
4. “Yes-No” drills
5. Orange belt techniques

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Warm Up Drills
We spent a good amount of time warming up today and going through the basics. Aside from time stretching, some of the items we covered including blocking, ball kicks, step-drags and other footwork, and roundhouse kicks. We did several of the roundhouse kicks as we started with the normal practice in the air and then partnered up and traded kicks. While we were trading kicks with a partner, Sifu had us vary our targets. Although we aren’t making much (if any) contact when we do these drills, we still kick to specific targets such as the groin, bladder, solar plexus, etc. It was a good warm-up and I had a good sheen of sweat going by the time we got started with class.

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“Yes-No” Drills
Sifu broke out the focus mitts and we did “Yes-No” drills again. I rather like this exercise and I don’t know why – I’m not particularly good at it either. I think it is cool how you can just sort of relax and train your mind and body to respond to the “Yes-No” pattern called out. It’s funny because the more tense I am, or the more I try to concentrate on accuracy, the worse my accuracy becomes. I do the best with this exercise by just relaxing and letting go. If it wasn’t for visual targeting, it would almost be better to do this one with the eyes closed. Anyway, it’s a pretty cool drill.

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Orange Belt Techniques
After the drills and warm-ups, we broke up and got into techniques. The White belts went through all six techniques, starting with Thunder and Lightning and working through to Beheading the Dragon. I felt rusty today, but only on a few of the techniques. Overall I did okay but could have done better. Sifu had plenty of advice on tweaking the techniques and I was employing some advice that I had received from the Purple belts as well. Overall, I’m improving and I owe it to the solid advice I’m getting.