Posted 12:32 AM by spitgirl
ADVANCED KICKS WORKSHOP

So today was the much-vaunted Susan Link open free sparring workout. Three blue belts, nine brown belts, and a handful of black belts (at least six) showed up to make a fairly full class. I can't say that any of the workouts that I've ever arranged (all one other one of them) has ever been this successful. After bowing us in, Susan had us in lines, doing fairly interesting running and jumping drills. We ran a line of fast foot drills, a number of jumping drills, and basically worked up quite a sweat. We then got into a big circle and did some simple stretches, then went around the circle doing some easy kicks and then some kick combos.

We then pulled out paddles and did some quick drills doing sliding and jumping front kicks (very quickly down the line) and then sliding and jumping axe kicks, both a couple of times through. Each person stood a couple of feet from each other and held them out on one side.

Afterwards, Susan talked about the low-high principle, which involves hitting low to get their attention down, and then going high into their blind spot to hit the head. So in closed stance, one would do a fast round or a reverse round just to get their attention, and then lean back into a quick high roundhouse to the head. In an open stance, one would once again get their attention to the ground from a reverse kick and then switch to a crescent kick to the head.

Susan also talked to us about what Dr. Link calls the secondary kicks, which are kicks that you would respond with. We covered getting off the line and throwing a roundhouse and also jumping turning back kick, which is slightly different than the shuttle kick, I found. We pulled on the hogus and started working on targeting.

The afternoon workout was an open workout, so I started out with a lot of soft rolls (still not-so-soft rolls) and then worked on a couple of falls, talked to some of the white belts to see how they were doing, talked to them about 16-step, and then worked on some 16-step with Kent. We got Dr. Link to teach us the rear-entry carpet roll, which is slightly different than the front-entry carpet roll. After we finished our reps of that, I was pretty exhausted and ready to go watch Harry Potter: Chamber of Secrets with Michael and a couple of hankido folks.

Oh, right... note to self - if ever asking Chris Peterson to teach, bribe with food. Oh, right, and lemon bars were an excellent choice for Susan. :-)