11.04.06 - Saturday Practice

New Items Today:

1. Pursuit Drills

Reviewed Other Items:

1. Warming up with Basics
2. Foot Maneuvers
3. Techniques

.

Warm-ups
Our warm up today focused on the basics. We did the usual stretches and then went into stances, specifically the neutral bow. Sifu told us to focus intently on form and not necessarily speed today as we were warming up. From the neutral bow we did step drags, step throughs, switches & covers, and more. We eventually went into some other foot maneuvers…

We did a crossover drill that reminded me of something from football practice, except specific to crossovers. We did crossovers up and down the mat several times. We also did some kick advances with the crossovers and just sort of mixed things up a bit. I think the point today was to be able to move correctly into and out of these different maneuvers and stances. Correctly? Yes, as in sticking to the basics like staying over your supporting leg, keeping your knees bent properly, not bobbing up and down, keeping control of your center of gravity, and no dead legging. Sifu also quizzed us as we were doing these things asking why we do them this way. It has been a while since we have done this type of drilling so it was kind of fun to do it again.

.

Pursuit Drills
After we were good and warmed up, Sifu paired us up and we did something new, or at least new for me. I started out with Phyl and we went back and forth up the mat. The first exercise we did had Phyl advancing toward me with a series of kicks as defined by Sifu. I did a rear step-through to retreat as he advanced, simply supplying a frame of reference for targeting. Once we reached the end of the mat, it was my turn and Phyl retreated for me as we traversed back to the original starting point.

The next part of the drill involved a little more spontaneity. Instead of set movements, the ‘aggressor’ used whatever kicks he wanted and the other ‘defender’ retreated in the same fashion. Again, we took turns going up and down the mat.

The next part was fun. The ‘aggressor’ did the same thing but the ‘defender’ (really the guy getting kicked, because we weren’t defending at all) would give a body reaction for the given kick. In other words, if the kick was to the groin, then the dummy would react as though he were kicked in the groin, and so on. There was no contact (well, not really) and it turned out to be as much of an exercise for me to figure out what my particular body reaction should be to a given strike as it was for the kicker to kick at available targets. It was also interesting to see what Phyl considered a target versus the targets I was pursuing. Great exercise.

There was a completely different pursuit drill following this one. This time Sifu essentially divided the mat in half and assigned one half to each pair of people. This time I was paired up with Walt. Sifu put the ‘defender’ in about the middle of the mat and told the ‘attacker’ to try to get past the defender to the back panel of the mat. If the defender kicked you in a viable target, you were to reset and try again. The main purpose of this was to use footwork and maneuvers to move around and control the movement of the ‘attacker’ with kicks alone.

We started. I don’t remember who was attacking and defending first but I remember defending against Walt. As he would move in, he would fake and try to juke in the opposite direction, like in football. For the most part, I would maintain an appropriate distance and when he would try to get by I would kick to a vital target. At first this didn’t seem terribly difficult but we were just sort of testing the waters. Then Walt picked it up a notch. At one point he just flat sprinted past me. Point for Walt. On another attempt, he dove into a roll low to one side and almost got by me. Still another time he did the same thing but dove high to the opposite side, and probably got by me on that one as well. Then we switched sides.

As Walt defended, he took a different approach. He was much more aggressive and tried to box me into a corner to prevent me from moving freely. This was relatively effective. He was right up on me and I just so badly wanted to bring a knee up to the groin and then bolt for the point! Alas, that was against the rules so I just went back to maneuvers. The only way I had any luck with Walt was to get him to commit to a kick on the edge of his range and then go around him as he was trying to adjust. This was only marginally successful but I did manage to make it work at least once. This was an interesting exercise and one of the things that makes it interesting is that I don’t know yet what I would do next time to be more successful at getting past the defender. Need to ponder that.

.

Techniques
The last thing we did today was work technique. This time, Jeff and I were teamed up and we started with the Orange belt techniques. Led by Sifu, we started off doing the technique slowly and then faster. We went through them in the order of the Master form beginning with Beheading the Dragon. We focused largely on accuracy of the technique but we also went over covering out – both single and double cross out.

Upon completion of the Orange belt techniques we went right into the Purple. I was working the techniques on Jeff and, quite honestly, I haven’t worked technique much on a body and it was showing. It was good to work them as I was having some issues. On Circling Serpent, I was stepping forward on the initial movement, sort of at a 10:30 angle. Upon seeing how crowded I was coming back in, Sifu corrected me and had me step out more to 9:00 on the first step. What a difference! Air Kenpo is great for practice but it is just different working on a body. Another item that Sifu went over with me on this technique was the grab at the shoulder. He didn’t feel that I had a firm enough grasp of the gi. He showed how the grasp needs to be tight in order to maintain control during and after the take down.

We worked through several more techniques as Sifu worked with the Blue belts. It was great to work technique again… it seemed like it has been a while. I certainly need the practice!