Happy New Year!

Tonight was the 1st session at our dojo in 2008 (we are based in a local community centre here in Liverpool and the centre staff are given a well deserved break during the Christmas holidays, so the dojo is shut for 2 to 3 weeks). It was a good turn out with about 20 black belts and many lower grades in attendance.

Sensei warmed everyone up with Junbi Undo then we did lots of basics, sliding, stepping, punching, kicking and things of that nature. Then we did some "distance training" exercises with a training partner - this involved blocking an attack and counter-punching an opponent. We practiced this several times.

Sensei also had everyone practice kicking towards (but not making contact with) a target. Here's how we did it - 1 training parnter kneeled on the floor in seiza position (as used at the begining and the end of each IOGKF karate class). The other training parnter then kicked above the top of his head using mawashi geri (roundhouse kick). This was performed to a count of 10, then the kneeling partner sat up straight and the kicking partner had to kick above his head again - again without kicking his training partner in the head! Very tricky!

Sensei had us practicing lots of exercises that involved countering attacks.

The class ended with Sanchin kata practice.