Backfist To The Dome

I don't know about the folks out there, but there is a couple of moves that have an automatic follow-up move. The one I see most (and also do myself) is a side kick that's followed up with a spinning back fist. We do it so often that when we are sparring we almost automatically raise our arm to block when someone even hints at doing a move after a failed side kick.

That being said, during the evening's sparring I neglected to raise my hand to block since I figured two things; 1. that my opponent was too far away and 2. he could control his strike. I was wrong on both accounts. Dave is my height but must have slightly longer arms. So the back fist did come and I did not have my hand up. Dave also did not have the control I would have liked to see. This led to a perfect placement of his two knuckles on my side of my head at the hat line.

I had to shake that off but I swear I could feel the fluid filling the new dent in my dome. Before I went to sleep I looked into the mirror hoping that I would have a nice bruise the next morning. Unfortunately just a little headache and nothing to show for it.
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Class had a total of three students last night. This is a classic dilemma for our town. We rarely have sunshine, but we've had it for 3 days in a row and that means we'll lose class numbers fast. So Dave, Ken and me practiced two step sparring and regular sparring for two hours. Super fun, but tiring. Teacher broke it up a bit by having us do something along the lines of an Aikido exercise. Uke strikes and we block and take the hand. At the same time we turn fully to capture and allow Uke to keep moving (and helping him) and then set up a wrist lock for a throw. This is usually the Kotegoeshi (wrist twist), but with our variation.

In the few Aikido classes I've been in the move is usually performed with the Uke at arms length so he can't punch you. Whereas we keep Uke close to us and use an elbow in the face to "soften" him. It give us a lot of power, but it keeps Uke close so if the move isn't done well then you get bashed.

Teacher then had us move to practicing blocks and grabs at real speed. This is something I don't feel I do particularly well, but this practice was excellent and I was able to move reasonably well and get a few positive grips and move into a serviceable lock.