Our Sensei’s Sensei visited our Dojo yesterday. It was fascinating to see someone so skilled and agile demonstrating the moves (even more so than Sensei John who is a little older than Sensei Simon), and it was also good to have two experienced instructors on hand to notice things.

With John we concentrated on more confusing combinations (like last week), in a continuing push towards combining any move, on any side of the body, with any other move, rather than becoming reliant on a left-follows-right-follows-left technique. Combinations included:

• Jodan Tzuki, followed by a Jodan Age Uke, both with the left arm, then both with the right.
• Chudan Tzuki, followed by an Uchi Uke (again 2 lefts followed by 2 rights).
• Chudan Tzuki, followed by a Soto Uke.

With Simon we concentrated on improving kicks, with focus on:

• technique

  For Mae Geri our positions were all a little top heavy, so we all had to sag into the preparation position a little more, with the knee raised as high as possible, this made thrusting the hips forward to power the kick a lot easier.

  We were also introduced to a similar technique for improving our Yoko Geri which involved tipping the hip facing the opponent up during the preparation phase so as to affect a more direct horizontal strike.

• balance

  This was hard work… Beginning in Heiko Dachi, prepare for a right leg Mae Geri, strike, and return to the prepard position, i.e. knee up, supporting leg bent a little, then turn 90 degrees to the left, keeping on 1 foot, strike again, then turn, strike again, then turn. Repeat for at least two full rotations (8 kicks), before changing legs and rotating the other way

• accuracy

  Here we concentrated, with a partner, on Ushiro Geri, one doing the kicking, the other providing a visual target (just outside of striking distance). The important thing was that the kick was central and that toes are kept pointing straight downwards, height can come with time, but horizontal accuracy is harder to learn.

Golden nugget of the day: The preparation is as important as the execution.