03.24.07 - Saturday Practice

Reviewed Items:

1. Focus Mit Drills
2. Purple Belt Kicking Drill
3. Mat Work
4. Technique Line
5. Techniques

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Warm Ups and Drills
We had a good warm up today with some additional focus on leg stretching. My lower back was feeling pretty good today and I was moving relatively well overall. Upon conclusion of the warm ups, we did some yes-no drills with the focus mitts. I was paired up with Percheryl today and it was the first time I have worked with her. She hits fast and it seems that she works well with speed. When it was my turn to hit, I was surprised that I was off a bit when we went to a 4-count after our 3-count drills. Before I could really settle in, the drill was over and we moved on.

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Purple Belt Kicking Drill
The class lined up and we got in position for the Purple belt Kicking Drill. We worked our way up the mat repeating the drill twice before turning around and coming back utilizing the drill on the other side. As usual, Sifu called out the kicking order at first and eventually just said “go” and we did the full set of moves on our own up and back. I lost count of how many times I heard “one more time…” but I’m guessing we did at least a couple of hundred kicks. I had a good sweat going by the time we finished the kicking drill.

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Mat Work
We did some light mat work today. I have been a little leery of the mat work since my dizziness a while ago but it hasn’t seemed to come back, at least not in class. We did some forward rolls staying down, and then coming up. After everyone got comfortable, we did some push-drills. For those that are able, they did air rolls – something that I still haven’t been able to do yet. When I attempt it, it’s more like an air crash. At least that’s what it feels like. After 20 minutes or so, we put the mats up and moved on to the next item for the day.

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Technique Line
We did a technique line next and the way we did it was interesting. Instead of one person doing the same technique all the way through the line and then moving to the end, we did a technique against a given attack. Since we have a variety of experience in the class, it was interesting to see the different techniques, particularly from Percheryl who is from another system altogether. We did defenses against straight and round punches from the left and the right. Good stuff. After concluding the technique line, we discussed some of the principles and concepts before finishing up class and bowing out for the day.