This evening's class at Childwall Dojo was taken jointly by Sensei Steve Walley (snr) and Sensei Steve Timson (both IOGKF 5th degree black belts). Our head instructor, Sensei Roy Flatt, was overseas at the time of this session - training in Okinawa with Higaonna Sensei.
Class Plan:
Jumbi Undo (Warm-up exercises - instructed by ST)
It was quite cold in the dojo tonight, so Sensei was quite thorough with the warm-up. We spent roughly twice as long as normal going through each body part, toes to head. This section of the class ended with a set of very strictly administered push-ups. Sensei Steve Timson is well known for his military-standard press-up regime. The last exercise of the Junbi Undo section of this class was a 'fun' game - 2 students paired together (training partners) and in ready themselves, head to head, in push-up position. The game was to use one of your hands to try and dislodge one of your partner's arms and knock them over (before they were able to do the same thing to you!). The 1st person to 5 knock downs wins. Lots of fun! We performed this short game with 4 different opponents and then moved onto the next section of the class.
Kihon (Basics - instructed by SW)
Sensei concentrated on kicking exercises for the majority of the kihon section of the class. Again this incorporated working with a training partner. The drills began with some light conditioning work - roundhouse kicks (mawashi geri) aimed at your partner's shoulder area. The light kick is to be accepted and met with a form of shoulder barge, before a return mawashi geri is thrown by the opposing training partner.
next the same kind of drill, but with a forward kick (mae geri) aimed at your partner's stomach. The kick can also be 'doubled up' with 2 fast mae geri, delivered with the emphasis of keeping them aimed in the lower stomach region (as conditioning work).
The final combination was a punch off the same hand as the leading leg (kizami zuki), followed by a roundhouse kick (mawashi geri) also off the leading leg. So if you have an orthodox guard you would be punching with your left hand and then kicking off the left foot. The punch is aimed towards your partner's head (no contact) and the kick is once again aimed for the shoulder area. Both training partners are given a turn each being to first to throw the combination, and the other person returns the combination quickly before the entire process is repeated.
Kata (instructed by SW)
With the same training partner as during the kihon section of the class. One person performs the first kata in the IOGKF Goju-Ryu syllabus - Gekisai Dai Ichi - their training partner uses a set of focus mitts for the 1st person to hit whilst they perform the kata. So as an example, when the person doing the kata is stood in "Yoi" (Ready position) at the beginning of the kata, his training partner will be stood to his left hand side with a focus mitt positioned somewhere over the top of his left temple. That way when he begins the kata and performs the first technique (a 90 degree turn followed by a fast Age uke AKA "Jodan block"), his left arm will strike upwards, meeting the focus mitt with his left forearm. The next move in the kata is then performed (a right hand punch), and again the training partner will position the focus mitt accordingly.
Each person performed the kata in this fashion, from start to finish, 3 times in total. Then everyone is the class performed the kata one more time but without anything around him to strike - but maintaining the same striking force in all of his techniques.
Padwork (instructed by ST)
All students once again stay with a dedicated training partner. The entire class then made their way to one end of the dojo, making sure to get themselves a bit of room (so nobody steps on top of anyone else!). We then were given a set of combinations to be performed by one training partner, while the other person held up the focus mitts for him to connect punches with. The person holding the mitts has to be very sure to hold them correctly, to avoid the possibility of injury (I won't go into each of the techniques that we performed, but there were 4 or 5 different combinations in total). Everyone in the class used the entire length of the dojo for this exercise, performing a combination and then moving slightly further along the floor until we reached the far wall... then we turned around and continued throwing punches in combination until we made our way back the the starting position. This meant that we each performed somewhere in the region of 40 combinations during this exercise.
Kata - Sanchin (instructed by SW)
The class ended with Sanchin kata for all students. Sensei explained about how a training partner will check the stance of a person who is performing Sanchin, including a simple explanation of how Shime (Sanchin testing, which may include slapping down onto the shoulders) is administered. Sensei was keen to emphasize that a training partner is not attempting to punish the person performing the kata, but rather he is there to assist him and to help him maintain his stance under tension.
Very nice class, thank you to both instructors. Also a personal thank you to my training partner for this evening, Mr Dave Hurst.
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