Back to Basics

         We had a fantastic class taught by Sifu Hayes last night.  I wish it would've been recorded, because there were so many golden moments that I cannot retain on my own.  The big takeaway from the class is centering, and how our center influences our power.

        Most of class was spent slide stepping forward and back, getting into our bow stance and horse stance.  Near the end we worked on throwing front thrust and side heel kicks, and lastly we worked on back fist.  From an outside perspective it probably didn't look like much, and looked like we were just practicing the basics.  Yes, that is partly true, we were indeed working on the basics, but these foundations support so much of our "higher" level techniques.  How we move through our forms is what separates a white belt from a black belt.  Even a simple slide step forward is vastly different from a white belt to a black belt.  The main difference being the micro decisions and adjustments being made by the black belt before they CHOOSE to step and commit.

        As we were going through all these motions, I paid attention to where my center was, where my weight was, how the ground felt beneath my feet, which parts of my feet i could feel the most, where I was holding tension in my body (shoulders), where I was relaxed, and how I felt as settled into the stance.  For the most part my bow stance feels pretty solid, I can always use more work on it.  I do still find it hard to "trust" the stance when someone comes up to me, I still want to brace and lean in, so I need to make a very conscious effort to look somewhere else.  As for my horse stance, my main thing is making sure my feet are level/even, as I find my left foot tends to go back slightly.  The more I've been practicing, the better it is getting, but again, it has been a conscious effort to do so.  As for the placement of my feet getting into the stance, I'm working on having full control going into the movement, so that if I needed too, I could recoil and re-center as needed.  This is also something that will help me with my board breaks, that consolidation.

        When it came to the kicks, my front thrust kick is still somewhere between a push and a throw.  Some kicks are better than others.  When I try to add more speed, especially when throwing a kick in the air versus a heavy bag, I find sometimes I lose tension in my foot and it becomes a little floppy.  Going against a bag I don't have to think about this, because I just do what I need to to hit the bag.  Then the side heel from the horse stance, sometimes this kick feels really good, and then sometimes I feel like I pull the chamber too much, as in I don't pull it back enough.

        Overall a fantastic class that I will be mulling over for some time.

Numbers:

Km's- 2990

AOK's- 1240

PU/SU- 48,370

Lung- 636

Stick- 639

Sparring- 765