Kihon Shibu 07/30/2007

Last night we started with performing the three basic kaiten (zenpo, sokuho, koho) in stride with your walk. After that I reintroduced jun nagare and introduced for the first time gyaku nagare. Naturally, that one was a bit more difficult because you're typically rolling from a higher position and therefore carrying a lot more momentum. As usual though if you break it down and practice slowly you'll get it.

Johnny then happened to mention cartwheels and since we were about at that place in the progression of ukemi I thought we'd go ahead and do them. We did migi and hidari oten from shizen no kamae and zenpo oten from ichimonji no kamae. Next was tenchi tobi from shizen no kamae. First we did two forms of ten tobi then chi tobi. After that we did zenpo tobi and koho tobi from ichimonji no kamae. Then we did zenpo, koho and sokuho tobi from shizen no kamae.

Next we revisited the chi, sui, and ka no katas of sanshin gogyo no kata and I introduced fu no kata. Then we did some uke/tori drills to practice the gedan uke since it was new. We did that from a low tsuki aimed at the stomach. We followed this with some jodan uke practice.

We wrapped up class by applying a counter attack to the uke's tsuki that incorporated basic atemi and taisabaki. Each attack was a tsuki to the face and each receive was done to the inside and outside. The first exercise was performing a jodan uke then moving through hicho no kamae to position for a sokugyakuken geri to the lower ribs (butsumetsu). The point here was being able to position yourself to perform an effective geri. The second exercise was performing a jodan uke then applying an omote shuto to the uke's arm as you switch from migi or hidari ichimonji no kamae taking the uke's balance with kamae and atemi. The point here was being able to fluidly switch from one ichimonji to another and properly place your lead foot/leg into position to affect the uke's balance.

Those last two exercises were a direct application of some of the taisabaki we practiced during the last class.

Gambatte!