03.11.06 - Saturday Practice

New Items Today:

1. Leg Stretches & Warm Ups

Reviewed other items:

1. ¼ Speed Sparring
2. Orange Belt Techniques
3. Orange Belt Form

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Leg Stretches and Warm Ups
Our normal routine in the morning generally starts off with some sort of dynamic stretching and some warm up drills. This morning was different only because we did some additional leg stretching. I guess the best way to describe them is that we were going deep lunges with the rear foot planted for maximum stretch with several variations. It’s pretty obvious to me that I need to be working on my flexibility. Hopefully my knees will strengthen some as I stretch and they will give me fewer problems in the future.

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¼ Speed Sparring
We jumped right into ¼ speed sparring after warm ups which is a little different than usual. I felt much more energetic sparring in the beginning of class as opposed to waiting until the latter part of class. I got tagged a few times, especially from Bill, as I would move in and block one of his strikes with my nose. I tried moving up the circle on him as he showed me a while back but I either moved to slow or he anticipated me because I was never able to get into a good position. My only saving grace sparring Sifu was when he came in with a sweep or leg trap of some sort and I was rooted a bit better than he thought, which caused him to go off balance. I wish I could claim some technical savvy there but I really had nothing to do with it.

Sparring the other guys was fun too. Alex has obviously been working on some grappling techniques and I found that interesting as he employed some new moves. Marty likes to get inside and take a piece of you with him so I did my best to hold my ground and keep him on my perimeter, with some success. Phyl still charges straight in so I was doing more to move around him and tried to get him to commit to a movement that put him out of balance, again with slight success. I also moved up the circle with him and did much better than I did with Bill. Then there was Walt. I was tired by the time I got to him and launched a consistent attack against me without letting up. It wasn’t particularly fast or anything, just one thing after another. I kept up with defenses and counters for as long as I could and then I was just gassed out and had to stop. I let him push me past my comfort zone to see how far I could go. It was a good thing, and I should do that more often. Jeff, our Taekwondo Black belt, was fun to spar with too. He likes to kick of course so I did my best to move inside of him and up the circle. The busier I could keep his hands, the better off I was. And I can’t forget Alexandra – she charges straight in and displaces me every time. She has a mean thrust kick and when it connects I usually wind up several feet backwards. Sparring was a lot of fun today and I hope we do some more soon.

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Orange Belt Techniques
Sifu led us through the Orange belt techniques. I have been working on these all week since the critique of my pre-test and looked forward to some feedback to see if I was on the right track. Generally speaking, I think I did okay but I am still having some trouble with the thrust kick in Thrusting Release. I asked Sifu to watch me and give me some feedback as to what I am doing incorrectly. After watching the thrust kick several times, he asked me where in my foot the weight was balanced; specifically, was the weight transferring to the outside edge of my foot? After thinking about it and trying it a couple of times, I agreed that it was likely just that. With some further analysis, we determined that I was not kicking directly forward but rather at a slight angle across my body, which explained the balance issues. Combined with keeping my foot flat on the floor for the kick (not rising up on my toes), the kick felt much better. I didn’t have much time to practice right then but I will practice more during the week.

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Orange Belt Form
The last thing we did was to go through the Orange belt form with Marty. Jeff had not been exposed to this yet so we started as a group from scratch. It was cool to see how quickly Jeff picked up the primary movements of the form and by the time we had finished, he could perform those movements by himself.

As before, Marty broke this form down several ways. After describing the basic moves, we tucked our hands in our belts and did the footwork only. We have done this before in class so it wasn’t particularly new to me but it was good to do it again. The next mode was to keep our hands tucked in our belts and close our eyes while going through the form. This was interesting. I used the sound of Marty’s voice as an anchor for my “12 O’Clock” and used the noise coming from the back of the room where the others were working out as an anchor for my “6 O’Clock”. Doing this helped me keep my lines straight and, in a weird sort of way, helped me keep my balance. I kept my eyes shut tightly for the entire drill and then opened them, not sure if I would be facing forward or not. As it turned out, I was indeed facing forward. The final mode of practice was to do the entire set of movements – blocks and footwork – with eyes closed. Again, using my audible anchors, I did fine. Great review.

We wrapped up class by observing the Purple belts as they did the Master Form up through Blue. They looked great. Sifu had them do the form several times and, aside from a minor glitch here and there, they did very well. It will be cool to watch them at the seminar next weekend.