10.05.07 - Friday Practice

New Items Today:

1. Blue Belt Techniques

Reviewed Other Items:

1. Mat Work
2. Yellow Belt Techniques

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Warm Ups
I was a little late getting in today due to some nasty traffic snarls on the Beltline. When I arrived and dressed, Walt, Phil and Rich were moving around getting loosened up a little bit. Sifu and I went through some of the Yellow belt techniques that we learned on Wednesday. After just a few minutes a couple more students arrived, one with a visitor in tow. Sifu went over to address them and I worked with Rich for a few minutes until class started.

Once class was officially underway, Sifu asked Walt to lead the warm ups. He took us through a good amount of limbering and stretching as well as the usual leg stretches. We also did some lunge punches and ball kicks. I was pretty warmed up by the time we finished up.

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Mat Work
Today’s mat work was fairly typical of our normal practice on the mats. The only difference really was that we had a visitor that was participating alongside us with some of our activities. He chose to just watch as we worked on the mat but Sifu had us do our normal regimen. We all did forward rolls both staying down and coming up. At that point Phyl, Walt and I did some belt rolls as Sifu explained what it was and why we do them. At the end of our mat work, Sifu had Walt do some air rolls. It’s always fun to watch the faces of people who see these things for the first time and today was no different. After the air rolls and explanations we put the mats aside and moved on.

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Blue Belt Techniques
We split off into several groups to work technique. Walt and I were paired up and he took me through several Blue belt techniques: Bridging Claw (inside defense against a right hooking punch), Clashing Hammers (defense against a headlock), and Trapped Lightning (outside defense against a right straight punch). As with the previous belt levels, the Blue belt techniques follow a general theme: Simultaneous Movement.

• Bridging Claw: This is the first Blue belt technique shown to me and the movements were a bit awkward at first. The more repetition, the more I got the hang of it. It starts out by dropping into a left neutral bow while the left hand shoots with a claw to the face. The arm placement is critical as your arm is inside the attackers right arm, elbow just above horizontal serving as a block as well as a strike. The next move is to transition into a left lunge stance as you deliver a right lunge punch to the solar plexus. The left elbow anchors to your side for protection with your left fist high. The last portion is the simultaneous part. Deliver a straight left to the head while at the same time executing a ball kick to the groin. This ends the base technique and you can cover out to safety.
• Clashing Hammers: This one was also awkward for me to pick up at first just because the initial hand movements were so different from everything prior. As I’m thinking about how to put this into words, I’m struggling with that too! It starts out as an immediate response to a rear headlock. As the motion of the headlock takes you down, don’t fight it, but rather allow for that movement to bring your arms down in a natural arc. The right fist comes up under the groin while the left fist is a hammer fist to the left kidney. Following this series of movements, the left hand slides up the back and finds the back of the head. You then simply bring your right fist to your left hand, effectively punching the attacker in the face. The left hand then transitions to a claw and moves to the front of the face and bringing pushing the head backward in an arcing motion. As the head reaches just about vertical, your left foot comes forward and simultaneously sweeps the right leg, effectively taking the attacker to the ground. This ends the base technique and you can cover out to safety.
• Trapped Lightning: This one was kind of cool because Walt showed me something so simple that I couldn’t believe that I didn’t learn on my own in the years that I’ve been on the planet. The technique starts similarly to Stopping the Storm but is on the outside of the initial punch. Walt starts out by bringing the right hand outward at a 45 degree angle with the palm up. Each time I was doing this initial movement I didn’t have my hand correct. Walt had me put my arm in the position but with my palm facing inward. He then applied lateral pressure to the arm and told me to take note of the force required to resist. He then repositioned my hand so that the palm was up and repeated the same test. To my amazement, my arm was much stronger with the palm up than turned in. It was one of those “duh” moments. Anyway, back to the technique. You start out with the same block-parry-grab motion as with Stopping the Storm but to the outside of the right straight punch, and deliver a left stop punch to the face. You are doing all of this while stepping forward into a left neutral bow. The next step has you shuffling forward checking the lead (right) knee while simultaneously checking the attacker’s right arm with a left looping heel-palm and delivering a right heel-palm to the attackers chin. Next the left hand transitions back to the face as a claw pushes the head back and your left foot comes forward to simultaneously sweep the attacker’s right foot, effectively putting him on the ground.

As Walt and I worked through these first three techniques, the Adult class started winding down and we transitioned into the “Intermediate/Advanced” class. Walt and I finished up and then I worked the rest of the night with him as his dummy so he could work his Brown belt techniques. There is some cool stuff in the later belts and I’m looking forward to getting into them. After an hour or so, we wrapped up and bowed out of class. It was a great night of training and I learned a ton tonight. Special thanks to Walt for all of his help.