04.14.07 - Saturday Practice

Reviewed Items:

1. Cardinal Directions Kicking Drill
2. Purple Belt Kicking Drill
3. Cross Stance Drills
4. American Kenpo Blocking Set
5. Techniques

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Warm Ups
We spent a good solid chunk of the morning warming up with the usual items as well as about every leg stretch I think we have ever done. Sifu also took care to run us through some other exercises that focused on areas such as the lower back, which I personally appreciated. By the time we finished our basic warm ups and moved into the drills, I had a pretty good sweat going on.

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Cardinal Kicking Drill
Immediately following the warm ups we went right into some drills. We were doing drills right up through the first hour or more of class today. The first one was the Cardinal Directions kicking drill. We’ve done this one before but it has been a while. The concept behind the drill is that your execute a kick in each of the cardinal directions (North, South, East, West) from a relatively stationary position. Starting from left neutral bow, the first kick is a right ball kick coming down in front into a cross stance to the left, then delivering a left side kick coming down in front into a cross stance to the right, next delivering a right side kick. Following the right side kick, the right foot comes down beside the left before the execution of a left rear heel kick. The first part of the maneuver ends in a right neutral bow where the same drill is duplicated on the other side.

This drill will really work your balance. The key is to keep your knees bent and your core centered over the supporting leg. Sounds simple enough. The first time I did this I was wind milling all over the place trying to keep my balance. Even now I will lose balance if my attention drifts while I’m doing the drill.

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Purple Belt Kicking Drill
Right out of the Cardinal drill we went into the Purple Belt Kicking drill. We did this the way we usually do where the class lines up at one end of the matt and we do the sequence twice one way before switching and coming back. Each time down and back is about 20 kicks. We did this drill at least 5 or 6 times so we threw more than 200 kicks during the drill. Obviously it was critical to keep focused through the drill or your technique suffers terribly. It was a good strong kicking work out.

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Cross Stance Drills
The next item on the agenda was something that we haven’t done in class for a long time. Sifu covered the cross stance in detail and we drilled it several ways. We started out simple by alternating front and back cross stance as we went back and forth across the mat. After than we combined it with some other footwork and eventually with some additional maneuvers. We finished off the cross stance drills by combining an advancing back fist with the cross stance. I’ve always liked the cross stance but tend to use it to uncoil to reverse direction, which is one thing that it lends itself to very well. It’s just a great tool to use for maintaining your choices for footwork and mobility.

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American Kenpo Blocking Set
I think pretty much everyone that was in class today was familiar with the AK blocking set. It’s another one of those exercises that we don’t do a whole lot in class but I tend to do it at home when I’m working out as a warm up. We didn’t spend a ton of time on it today but we spent enough time to go through the drill 5 or 6 times or so.

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Techniques
The last part of class was spent working out some details for the seminar. We all picked a technique we wanted to do and then lined up according to rank in a large circle. We took turns first attacking and then defending as we went around the circle. To start things off, Sifu attacked Brandon, then Brandon attacked Jeff, Jeff attacked me, I attacked Walt, Walt attacked Alex, Alex attacked Phyl, and Phyl attacked Sifu for the final technique. The last attack had Phyl utilizing an escrima stick and Sifu defended, disarmed, and counter attacked with the stick. We practiced this several times individually and then together in the circle.

Of course, I was told to focus on intent. I don’t look mean enough. It sort of turned into a joke as Sifu told me to envision Jeff not returning one of my loaner cars with gas in it (a reference to my job). I promised to work on my intent. After we went around the circle several times, we bowed out and closed class for the day.