Shihan Hartzog was unable to make it today again so I got to train with Senpai (Sempai) Phillipe.

- Regular stretching exercises etc etc
- 50 x Ab sit ups
- 20 x Mae Geri per leg
- 20 x Jodan Mawashi Geri per leg
- 20 x Gedan Mawashi Geri per leg
- 20 x Mika Tsuki Geri per leg
- 20 x Soto Tsuki Geri per leg

didn't work on punching today....

He showed me a couple of tricks and maneuvers during our kumite session.

On our first fight, I remembered him punching my guard arm up and my fist hit my face. At first I thought it was accidental but he did it a second time. So today I asked if he was doing that on purpose or what, and he stated that it's a little trick that you can do in competition kumite where you punch the opponents guard not only to wear the guard down but to use their own fist to hit their face. Kind of an interesting tidbit to tuck away for later use....

Kumite'd a little more and I got knocked pretty hard in the shin when I met his knee guard. He stopped and said that he knew that it hurt really badly and showed me how to protect the injured leg while fighting until you can recover from it. You place the injured leg as your back foot in your fighting stance and if the opponent tries to throw a mawashi geri to the injured leg you pivot around on your front leg to avoid it. He said something about sabaki tai or sabaki movement or something, cannot remember the name anway.

Other tidbits I took away from it all
- to drill your opponent, you want to minimize the impact zone as much as you can
- need to work on breathing. he caught me a couple of times where I was breathing incorrectly with a punch to the stomach.
- need to work on overall power and balance in my legs. my left leg is definitely weaker than my right leg.

Test on thursday so I won't be able to go tomorrow but i've decided to go Monday - Thursday next week.