So far the recent influx of new students are sticking with it and consequently, we had a nice large class again. Dave was head instructor. After a warm up lead by Sean, we bowed in, then moved into kihon. This was followed by partner kihon for working on mai geri and mawashi geri (front snap and round kick). We worked on this for some time before grabbing our gloves and doing ippon kumite (one-time engagement sparring). Some of the new students have some promise, though of course they all have much to work on. I tried to provide each one with one item of feedback for them to work on. Regarding my own training, I still need to work on moving slightly further offline when evading a strike. I tend to drag one foot behind, leaving it open to sweeps and leaving me slightly less responsive. Also my uchi uke (inside forearm block) still needs lots of work – it is too slow and more often than not with an upper ranking member they’ll either get my chest or my bicept before I can complete the block.
During kihon I have been focusing on my oi zuki, trying to hone it and make it smoother with less pre-strike motion, and also keeping my elbow in tighter.
The last drill for the night was the “machine gun attack” drill. We had three columns, each with a single defender. The attackers come on as quickly as the defender can reset. It’s a good drill, but the defenders need to focus and keep their wits about them and some of the attackers get a bit wild with their strikes.