06.03.06 - Saturday Practice

New Items Today:

• First Day at Red Sun Academy

Reviewed Other Items:

• Warm ups
• Orange Belt Techniques
• Orange Belt Form
• ¼ Speed Sparring

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First Day at Red Sun Academy
Today was the first day at the new location. We are now officially meeting at the Red Sun Academy in Raleigh for our Saturday morning sessions. It is a very nice facility with all that you would expect in a good martial arts school including mats, mirrors on the walls, “Bobs”, pads and more. It was great working out there – we had so much space to move around in!

Orange Belt Techniques & Orange Belt Form
Warm Ups were a crusher for me today. I haven’t worked out this week and I could really feel it. It was less difficult working on the mats though as they are similar to those used at White Tiger. I think they are 1” foam mats and they were fairly rigid. Good stuff. We did the usual ball & roundhouse kicks, as well as step throughs and step drags. After some good stretches and punches, we got to work.

I worked a lot with Jeff today. We started out working Beheading the Dragon and Returning Serpent. Jeff is in the process of refining his techniques and did a good job honing in on the items that needed work. He listens well and has a good ‘feel’ for the techniques. He’s doing great. I on the other hand was very sloppy today. Sifu corrected me several times on minor nuances today, but they were things that I should have down cold by now. I tightened them up and focused mainly on Jeff today.

After working our second Orange Belt technique, Sifu had us work on the Orange belt form. We went through it a couple of times and Sifu made comments and corrections for some items that he saw. He then left our mat and had me count off for Jeff and I while he worked with the Purple belts. We must have worked that form for a solid 15-20 minutes straight and I was wringing with sweat by the time we finished. It was great practice and I needed it.

Following the forms practice, Jeff and I went through the rest of the Orange Belt techniques. As before, Jeff quickly adopted some of the fine tuning that I was throwing his way and did great. At one point, Sifu grabbed a couple of big blocking pads off the shelf and came over to work with us on our blocks. It wasn’t long before he determined that those pads looked to have more protection than they really did and we abandoned that exercise to continue working on techniques.

¼ Speed Sparring
I started off partnering with Phyl. I felt out of shape and out of focus. Phil was landing somewhat freely on me and I started to take advantage when he was on the inside. I don’t recall, but afterward he says I put him to the mat 4 times. He may have gone down but I don’t remember them being very “clean”. I’m pretty sure that in each case he countered on me either as he was going down or just before. I really need to get back to work and get some practice in.

Next up was Alex. I was warmed up from sparring with Phyl but I could have done better. Alex had some excellent shots to the body on me on several occasions. I also noticed that he was kicking quite a bit to my legs, using what appeared to be a Thai kick. Granted he wasn’t throwing them at full speed but I really didn’t find the kicks to be much more than annoyance. I got to the point that I actually would raise my knee to intercept the kick and then shoot straight in with a side kick to his opposite leg. I know he can kick hard and if we were going full speed, I likely wouldn’t attempt such a maneuver without pads. I’ll work on things a bit for next time.

The last person I sparred today was Jeff. He loves to kick. Of course, in order to get through those long range weapons, I have to move in past those kicks and that is what I started doing. At this point, we pretty much started wrestling instead of sparring. I would come in close and he would grab my gi to tie me up. I tried switching things up and coming in with knees and elbows but he largely was doing the same thing. I got so tired muscling him around that I felt completely gassed by the time Sifu called time. I was truly shot today by the time we left.

Final Thoughts
To commemorate our new digs, Sifu had one of the two observers that were here today take a picture of all of us. We wrapped up and got out of there on time and without incident. On the way out I realized that Walt had driven his father’s truck and he had both my mat and his new mat with him. I helped to carry them out to the truck where we determined that we probably will just leave them at Walt’s place as the mats at Red Sun were adequate.

Another note of mention: Marty was there today! We hadn’t seen him since the seminar but he has been out of commission with some ailments. He is getting over a cold and didn’t want to push it today, but he’s looking forward to getting back in the groove with us next week. It was great to see him again.