Tonight’s class focused on good body motion. I really appreciated the focus on ensuring correct hip rotation, distancing, and positioning, each analysed seperately in their own drills. The final part of class was ippon kumite followed by sanbon kumite to practice applying what we had been drilling on.
Shotokan’s “trademark technique” is gyaku zuki, the reverse punch. With my previous dojo, nearly -any- time a gyaku zuki was performed, a hip rotation was to go with it. With this current dojo, there are a number of times when hip rotation is shunned as extra motion, relying on the momentum and positioning of the body its self, thereby acting faster, but ultimately I believe with less over all power, which is a large part of making the reverse punch so devestating.

It was a Dave night tonight, which for any regular in class means that it was a serious workout. I lead class through warm ups, then after bowing in, we started in on kihone. We performed one hundred of each of the following while in zenkutsu dachi (front stance); oi zuki (front punch), gedan barai (down block), age uke (rising block), uchi uke (forearm/inside block), tetsui uke (hammerfist/outside block), mae geri keage (front snap kick), mawashi geri (round kick). After all this, we moved into ippon kumite (one-attack sparring) for the last fifteen minutes or so.
It was a good class. Frankly, I don’t always appreciate Dave’s classes as he tends towards the “drill sargent” approach which negatively motivates me. However, there wasn’t as much of that tonight and it was a good work out. I’ll definately be feeling it tomorrow!

Class tonight was good. Brad was primary instructor. After warmup, we did kihon, then moved into kata. He divided us into upper and lower ranks, the upper ranks working on Basai, the lower ranks working on Heian Shodan. I really appreciate that approach as I think that overall, the beginners in this class tend to be tossed directly into the fire and tend to be dragged along with the more experienced students.
Granted, with the rather open format of the class (martial arts taught at a fitness gym), it is difficult to group beginners, intermediate, and experts because literally everyone started at a different time. That said, once a student has tested for their first time, they are at that point pidgeon holed into a rank, at which point it because much easier to divide up.
I hope that I will one day achieve my shodan rank (first black belt rank) and be allowed to instruct the class. At that time I will try to integrate some of my own training experiences and strategies, hopefully to the betterment of the class.