Last Night's Kickboxing Class

I have had so much information thrown at me in Karate lately, I Thought I would jot some of it down here to help drill it into my head. Last night we did an entire class of bag work, and because I am the only one in the kickboxing class right now, it was a solid 40 minute workout. I will also use Japanese yogo (terminology) when possible to help me remember it. 

The first combo was a one two jab, no problem. Even the sanbon zuki (triple punch variying between the kizami zuki (Jab), gyaku zuki (reverse punch), and another kizami zuki) came easily. It was adding in the kazime geri (front left snap kick) that really threw me off. It was really awkward kicking when in so close and I constantly would step back to kick and would be completely off balance. I mean I could do them, but they just never felt right so i couldn't get into any kind of groove with it. And adding two mawashi geris (roundhouse kicks) to the end of it didn't do me one bit of good. 

So on and on I went, fighting through exhaustion I continued to  try and get the hang of doing these kicks while trying to remmber to keep my arms up, switch them but not too close to the face, turn the hip over, snap the mawashi geri out, snap the hip to follow through the target, and get it back on the ground as fast as I can. 

It is a lot to think about in half a second. 

It wasn't until Sensei had me do rapid fire mawashi geris that we finally discovered my balance issue of carying my center of gravity in my solar plexis. Sensei simple told me to breath from my seika no itten I believe it was. The second I started to breath from my stomach I felt my core tighten up and could tell that my center of gravity  had moved down. Then when performing the mawashi geris they became almost effortless. I mean after spending  half an hour exerting myself trying to stay balanced they were effortless by comparison. In any case, it was one of those aha moments worth blogging about.