CLINIQUE DE KYOKUSHIN-KAN KARATE CLINIC

Last weekend Sensei K, Sempai S, Jared and I took a 7 hour drive to Edmundston, New Brunswick for a Kyokushin Seminar. It was held by the Edmundston dojo and was attended by many people from all over Canada. Shihan Fujiwara, from Connecticut, 6th Dan, Uchi Deshi under Sosai Mas Oyama and also Ushi Deshi under Sushu Shigueru Oyama, ran all the classes.

The first class of the day on Saturday, was the children's  class. Shihan Fujiwara was inspiring. The man had so much energy and really enjoyed being with the kids. He began with the tradition warm-up,

My Sensei, The Dojo Monster

Sensei is a monster. It's true. I wish I could be like her though. Here she stands, 5 foot 6 inches tall, weighs about 135 soaking wet and has all the respect and awe of grown men and teenage boys alike for her fighting abilities, stamina and strength. They look up to her and hang on every piece of well thought out advise, so do I.

Every month she spends the weekend with the US branch chief of our organization. Every month she some back with a new torture drill for us.

Last time she went, we did back kicks for at least a half hour. At first we stood with our hands against the wall. We were to bring our knee up to our chests and opening our hips bringing our leg out and behind us. We then brought them back the exact same route. Our knees were not allowed to go down past hip level. She went to each of us individually and for the first 2 count of every set, manipulated our legs into the correct position.

2 Minute Cardio Drill ~ Kick Boxing Class

I taught the cardio kickboxing again last Thursday and thought I would share a cardio drill that I did.

For those who know me, know I don't have much of an attention span. I have to change things up. The last three times I taught class, I had them do Tabata intervals. This time for cardio drill, I had everyone stand in front of a wavemaster standing bag with their bag gloves on and for two rounds I called a number. Something that Sensei Kris did once with us. The participants were to do any kick or punch combo they wanted but it had to be that number of times. For example, if I yelled 2, someone could do a punch and a kick, or two kicks, whatever they wanted. Sometimes I would yell 27, and tell them to be faster when they were about half done.

As soon as the third person was done with their combo, I would shout a number again. The reason for this is because the first person done, is always the first person done. It was the uber athlete that was first and although most are all athletes, we are not all are as hardcore. The other athletes in the room also don't want to get slowed down by civilians. So if you call out the number of the last person to finish, the athletes gets restless and don't get a good workout.

For those not familiar with my cardio kickboxing class, it is a circuit class taught with a round timer. The rounds are 2 minutes long, with a 30 second break. We always do a warm up for three rounds, and stretch for two rounds at some point. We also do a round each of push-ups, abs, and squats of some form or another. The other 14 rounds are of my choice. For break down of a sample kickboxing class, see my post Kickboxing with Tabata