Chuck was head instructor tonight. After the stretching, we breifly practiced kicks, placing them against the wall. Following was some intensive practice of kihon mai te (front jab) and uraken (backfist) with and with out partners. We then comboed in starting with mai geri or mawashi geri and finishing with gyaku zuki. One of the hardest things for me initially was breaking my habits of old. Previously I practice this sort of thing starting from fudo dachi (fighting stance). From that stance, generally you just drop straight forward into zenkutso dachi with the mai te. Tonight, Chuck was having us begin in zenkutso dachi, shuffling forward with the mai te or uraken, or even semi-cross step before lunging in with the mai te or uraken.
After this segment, we split into upper and lower, Brad leading the upper ranks in Heian Yodan. We went through by count, with no count, with only a left arm, with only a right arm, with noodle arms, etc. There are still one or two techniques that I do as a hold over from PCKD that they would like me to try the SKA way on. I prefer the PCKD version, but Brads words are wise in that perhaps I should practice both, so that I am familiar with each and learn from each method (“who am I, a 4th kyu karateka to say the one technique is better than the other?” – not his words, but one can’t help thinking perhaps that is on the mind of some of my upper ranked sempai, dan and sensei). None the less, my path in the arts involves personally exploring, rather than blindly following.
Over all, it was a good sweaty class (The tempurature is rising – I’m not looking forward to the summer heat just around the corner).