day 161: punch and kick drills

forms:

• tournament prep-sparring
• tournament prep-jian shu

we had a long Sunday, with Alex back and wanting to get in practice time for referees. we ended up dividing things equally between sparring and jian shu, starting at around 9 and ending around 1:30.

tournament prep-sparring

sparring work today consisted primarily of punch and kick drills, with the goal of acclimating people to free-form offense and defense. Sifu had us work in pairs, with each pair doing several rounds of each drill before switching partners with another pair. in addition, to help us adjust to tournament rules, he had us work in full gear, with helmets, gloves, and pads. he cautioned that since this was meant to acclimate people to full-speed actions that we should hold off on full contact power and focus on just adjusting to timing and velocity.

the drills were as follows:

• punching drill--this involved 1 partner attacking and the other partner defending. the attacking partner was supposed to attack with any type and combinations of punches, with the defending partner defending himself. both partners are free (and expected) to move around each other as if it were a real fight, either trying to get around one another or opening or closing distance from each other.
• kicking drill--this is the same as the punching drill, but with the partners both using their kicks. the defender, however, could use hands to defend against kicks (using go and gua), although the primary defense was supposed to be the feet.
  

Sifu made a number of points:

• for us, high kicks are considered dangerous, and so normally in a street fight setting we'd stick to low or medium kicks. however, we employed them in practice to learn how to defend against them.
• on defense, don't try to watch the punch or kick. it can be too fast to observe or react in time, and often can be used as just a diversion. it's better to simply focus on the overall body of the attacker, and read their actions based on their body movement. this allows more time to respond.
• you're going to get hit. you can't always successfully defend against every punch or kick. the goal, however, can still be to minimize the damage.
• keep the chin down, eyes up. this can be hard when you're constantly moving, which is why you have to train for it.
• keep the hands up. this can be hard when you get tired, which again is why you have to train for it.
  

tournament prep-jian shu

we finished the day with jian shu tournament prep, holding mock rounds to help the judges train to either be referees or to work as line judges. we also worked on some tournament formalities that Alex wanted to institutionalize into the sport.