03.04.06 - Saturday Training

New Items Today:

1. Stretching from a Horse Stance
2. Orange Belt Pre-Test

Reviewed Other Items:

1. Warm ups
2. Orange Belt Techniques
3. Orange Belt Form

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Warm ups and stretching
We did the normal warm ups this week but we also did some additional stretching that was new to me. We did several stretches from a Horse stance that focused on the legs and torso. In most cases, the stretches start from the Horse stance and then the body turns and leans in one direction, and then the other. In some cases you lean toward the direction you are facing with focus on stretching the legs, while other times it seemed that the torso received as much stretching as the leg muscles. Over all I felt a little uncomfortable with the stretches but that was mostly because I was unfamiliar with them and my balance was off. I’m sure they will become more comfortable if we continue to use them.

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Orange Belt Techniques
Sifu pulled Marty and Elliott over and quickly ran through each of the 6 techniques for Orange belt. The intent was to show them any nuances that Sifu teaches that may be slightly different from what they were taught. After this quick review, Marty and Elliott (both I.K.C.A. black belts) took the White belts aside and we went through all of the techniques.

I don’t think there were any new items that I discovered practicing the techniques. I did see that there were certain small items that I would leave out from time to time as I witnessed others in the group doing them. One item of not is checking, for example on Deflecting Thunder I wasn’t bringing the left hand up to check after the block. As I watched others in the group, I noticed that Alexandra was the only one of us that was getting the check in the right place at the right time. Of course, after I noticed it I started doing it properly and was watching everything else I was doing in the technique much more carefully for fear that I was missing something else.

I’m still struggling with the thrust kick in Thrusting Release. It only seems to be a problem when I am doing the kick in the air. I brought this up to Sifu one day and he said I’m cheating the kick because I am using my target for stabilization at the end of the kick. For some reason, I seem to be losing my balance at the point of impact when kicking in the air. One pointer that helped tremendously was when Sifu told me to keep the foot that is on the ground flat and don’t rise up on my toes during the kick. This did indeed provide more stability but I’m still tending to feel off balance. I’ll work on it some more and see what I come up with.

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Orange Belt Form
After working the techniques for a while, we practiced the Orange belt form. Marty has a particular way he likes to train with new things and that is to do the footwork only first before launching into the whole form or technique. It’s interesting to do it this way and it is sort of fun because in my head, I’m still going through the hand movements. We practiced without hands, then full movements, then with our eyes closed. Overall it was a good review.

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Orange Belt Pre-Test
After class, some of the guys (and girl) stuck around and watched me as Sifu taped my Orange belt pre-test. This was interesting. I have never taped myself doing anything before so I didn’t know how I was going to react in front of the camera, nor did I know what to expect afterward while watching myself on tape. After noting all of the required locations in which I had to stand for the camera, the actual taping began.

It seemed simple enough. “Salute” was the command. Something we do several times during class; so many times it is sort of ingrained… or so I thought. My brain heard the command, comprehended the command, and immediately locked my limbs. Definitely a “DUH” moment. After a couple of embarrassing seconds I got all of my faculties together again and saluted in the direction of the camera. Rough start.

After that, it was relatively smooth sailing. The test is set up so that a person off camera, in my case, Sifu, calls out the items of the test and the person testing performs the appropriate actions on cue. The person testing performs any given item several time while facing the camera and then turns left and does the same set of items again, giving the opportunity of the person later reviewing the tape to see the same movements from two different perspectives. There were a couple of times that I was thinking too much and when I was told to “turn to my left and repeat those moves”, I turned left and then lead with the wrong stance (right stance instead of left). It was an interesting experience and I’m sure I’ll be going through it several more times before my Kenpo journey is complete.

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Follow Up
Sifu gave me a written critique and the video tape on Monday morning following the pre-test. As I scanned through it, I was a little disappointed to see that some of the very things I have been working on were the same items I was getting dinged on. However, viewing the tape later on at home was very enlightening. Had I never read Sifu’s critique, I would have dinged myself on the same items because they were right there in front of me as clear as day. I had never given much thought to the effectiveness of taping and reviewing myself but I can definitely see how it could be powerful learning tool.

Bottom line is that there are things I need to work on for the actual test. Between Sifu’s comments and other items I see on the tape, I’ll focus on the areas that seem to be causing me trouble and we’ll try it again.