06.24.06 - Saturday Practice

New Items Today:

• Kicks: Rising Heel Kick
• Kicks: Rear Scoop Kick
• Kicking Combinations
• Extensions

Reviewed Other Items:

• Kicks: Thrust Kicks
• Kicks: Side Kicks
• Techniques: Orange & Purple belt
• Master FormBelt Tying

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Kicking Combinations
When we warmed up today we did a lot of leg stretching, which flowed right into the first area of coverage for the morning. Sifu covered some kicks that I have seen but have not been trained in at all up until today. These “new” kicks were presented as part of a combination set of kicks that tend to lend themselves well as extensions to a leading technique or kick.

We paired off with one person holding a target (pad). In my case, I was working with Marty and started off with a right ball kick immediately transitioning into a right neutral bow, where I then pivoted into a lunge stance. From this stance, you simply raise the rear (right) heal straight up to the target (groin) and then quickly retract it back to the ground. The maneuver is finished up by taking an adjustment step forward as necessary to execute a right rear heel kick, presumably to one of the vertical targets presented (bladder, solar plexus, etc.). We spent a fair amount of time getting this combination kick down to where it was comfortable to execute and was reasonably fluid. I was really surprised at how well these kicks came together, even though it was the first time I had put this combination to practice.

After we were relatively comfortable with this, Sifu went through a few places that we might use this in conjunction with a technique. Thunder and Lightning was a good example as you are ending in a neutral bow right between the attacker’s legs. Just pivot, execute the heel rising heel kick and the rear heel kick. Another example that was discussed was Deflecting Thunder. Again, because of the position you generally end the base technique in, the kicks are just a natural extension. Good stuff! When shown like this, the extensions seem obvious – I am just hoping through practice and analysis that these concepts start to root in my own mind and flow easily should the time come to use them.

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Kicking the “Bobs”
Although we have practiced both the thrust kick and the side kick on numerous occasions, today we practiced these kicks on the “Bobs”. Bobs are kinda cool. They are basically an anatomically correct weighted rubber head and torso that can be adjusted to various heights. I don’t know if they are really called “Bobs” or not, but that is what I have always referred to them as. Anyway, they provide some reasonable feedback when struck but most importantly (for me anyway) is that you can clearly see the target you are striking, For instance, when we were doing the front thrust kicks, Sifu pointed out that the solar plexus is approximately two finger widths below the point of the sternum. I’ve known this for some time, yet when I kick to the solar plexus, I have been kicking too high! I have been kicking to the base of the sternum. When kicking the Bobs, it is real easy to get your targeting in line with a life size dummy that can take a pretty good beating.

Alex did point something out to me today that I didn’t even realize I was doing. When acquiring the target and striking, the focus should be – depending on actual target – up to several inches beyond the surface of the target. This increases the power and effectiveness of the strike. I knew this, and yet wasn’t applying the principle. When Alex picked up on it and told me, I changed up and saw an immediate improvement. Thanks, Alex! Aside from that, the other thing I realized was how much weaker my left side kicks are compared to my right. I’ll need to work on that.

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Techniques
We all paired up with “like ranked” partners to practice techniques. This sort of leaves me as the odd man out because I’m the only Orange belt at the moment. I paired up with Sifu and we worked on some of the techniques that I’m finding the most challenging, starting with Raking Hammer.

As we went through Raking Hammer, I realized that my initial positioning has been wrong as I practice it. I have been stepping back into a neutral bow and sort of transitioning into a horse stance to get the hammer-fist to the groin. Sifu showed me that I should just drop straight into that horse stance. In doing so, it corrected my range problem and brought everything together nicely. He also pointed out that I need to get lower in that horse stance so I can really get under the groin for effectiveness.

The next technique we worked was Circling Serpent. The area I was having trouble with on this one was the back knuckle strike. Sifu says it is more of a whipping back fist and in practicing it this way I was better able to get my arm into position for the shoulder grab that immediately follows. Since I started my training, I have always been taught that the return after a strike should be as fast or faster than the strike itself. I was practicing it with more of a rigid back knuckle and fully retracting the strike, which meant I had to move my hand back forward again for the grab. With this subtle change, the retraction is still there, but it is more in the wrist than in the entire arm, keeping the location of the hand in better proximity for the shoulder grab.

My issues with Stopping the Storm lie in the initial block-parry-grab. My tendency is to try to just grab the arm. I am still developing my sensitivity related to relative body positioning and the more I practice this with a live person, the better it gets. Another area that Sifu commented on was the anchoring of the left elbow immediately following the grab. This really cancels the height and depth zones of the attacker and brings them right into the stop punch that awaits using the torque of the body as opposed to trying to muscle them into place.

I have the gross movements of Hooking Thunder down but had a question on targets for the final punch. As we went through it the first time, I had unwittingly pulled Sifu right into me after I hooked his leg. I basically asked him why he did that and he informed me that he was simply following the directed path that I put him on. This got me thinking and we did it again, this time I didn’t just drop the foot when I moved in for the thrust punch, but rather gave it a sideways shove to my right, trying to determine what control I had over his movement. Based on his response, I realized that I had actually given him more choices to escape or evade and had reduced my ability to follow up with the punch. By pushing him in a given direction like that, I essentially produced an orbit that he could follow that took him off my line of attack. By bringing the attacker’s foot directly past me I am controlling where he is going and capitalizing on the forced “dead leg” by placing my fist to his head.

I got to thinking about being on the receiving end of this…It would kinda suck because you are more or less falling into a punch to the face and your arm is pinned so you can’t even protect yourself – you likely will see the fist as it comes directly into your face and can’t do a thing about it. Hehee… sucks to be the bad guy!

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Master Form
Sifu worked with the others for a few minutes while I went through the Orange belt portion of the Master Form. I have been working on this through the week and I’m starting to finally smooth out a little bit. I’m still a bit choppy as I make the transitions but it’s coming together. I have been purposely practicing from several different starting positions so that I don’t get use to any ‘landmarks’ that I can use as reference. I still need more practice but it’s getting better.

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Belt Tying
Just as we were set to finish up class, Sifu had us take off our belts. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on but very quickly Sifu ran us all through the process of tying our belts, stating it was for the purpose of continuity in the class. We all managed to get our belts re-tied and Sifu mentioned that I had worked on some instructions for belt tying on my blog site, and that he was going to go through and check the verbal descriptions to see if they were accurate to the way we should be tying our belts.

The directions I created are a combination of both pictorial drawings and text based descriptions. Hopefully they will be to Sifu’s liking. If not, I’ll need his help in rewording them to his satisfaction. ;-)