Archives for May 2008

Sensei Noia broke the class up into two groups. The ones who wanted to spar went off with him and the rest of us, who wanted to do kata, went with Sensei Gatch.

This class went by really fast for some reason.  I am not sure why but it felt like we just started and then it was over.

Sensei Gatch had us work on our basics for a good amount of time but instead of doing our normal drills, he spoke in Japanese.  He gave us our moves both in groups and one at a time to make sure we new our Japanese terms.

In this class, Sensei Cieplik had us work on some old things and some new things.

Sensei was paying particular attention to the more simple parts of the movements. He often explains that he doesn’t look at the punches or blocks from the upper body, instead he looks at the position of the feet, legs and hips. He often tells us that anyone can punch or block but doing the movements with the entire body is the key.

In order for me to use more lower body and less torso, I need to reduce my power a bit. Sensei and I talked about this after class and he said that using 85% power is about the limit before someone falls over when doing a forward movement such as as front punch. If all of the power is put into the punch it will make the body follow the punch to the floor. There are often times that I punch so hard, I can feel my front foot heel, pickup off the floor but the problem is that my upper body is pulling me over and if I let it, down to the floor.

We did a different movement that I have never seen before. I hope I can explain this in text. We stood upright with our feet about one square, about a foot apart, moved our right leg behind us, about a foot, pivoted on our left heel and turned 90 degrees using only our lower body, meaning without upper body momentum. We did this a few times, all the way around, trying to use the “salad bowl” motion when do so. The problem that Sensei was seeing is that when moving backward into a downward block, we were just falling into the move instead of moving into it, with power.

At the end of class, we finished up with some kata. Sensei had us start with Heian Shodan, then Heian Nidan, then Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan, Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai. Sensei Cieplik always has us do a kata for every rank in the class up to brown belt. He spent some extra time working on the block punch move after the front kick, tripple punch in Jion. I always have an issue with that part since coordinating myself and remember to do everything make me pause and think. I remember the reach but moving into the cat stance with the block slows me down a little. After the block, I need to make sure that I am not driving my power sideways to the left but instead it needs to go the front when I throw the reverse punch. One problem, that Sensei explained, is that if the back foot is already not in the proper position the power will be directed to the side. Driving off the back heel is very hard if the foot is not facing at a 45 degree angle after the block. The idea is the move the back foot into the right position while in the cat stance with block movement.

It was a great class as always.

I might have mentioned this before but for the last six or eight months, my wife, son and I assist Sensei Noia on Tuesdays and Fridays and Sensei Gatch and Sensei Plocharczyk on Saturdays with Karate classes. Before Tuesday classes start, I get to the gym a little early so that I can do my kata before I help out. I do all of the kata that I know from Heian Shodan all the way up to Jion. I always do this so that all of the katas are fresh in mind just in case I need to help show the students how to do them.

I was just finishing up Jion and a couple of students walked in a little early and asked me to come over by them. They said that they only saw that last part of my kata and could I do it again. Of course, I said yes and I ended up doing one of the best Jion’s that I felt I have ever done. I just goes to show how much the mental part plays in Karate. I should be able to do a kata like that all the time but for some reason, it has to be my mindset, something holds me back.

I plan on spending the next month or as long as it takes, working on finding out how I can make my mind work like it did during that kata. If I can find the switch or trigger, I want to try and replicate it and turn that switch on during class, at the tournaments and during my exam.
We took the advanced class tonight since my son is now a third kyu and eligible to take it.

Two words to describe it, Excellent Class!!!

This was one of the classes to write home about. So many things about it was just right, I hope I can remember all of it.

We started in a horse stance and ended up doing 250 moves. We got a short break after every 50 moves but it was equal to about eight minutes in a horse stance.

During the class Sensei Noia had us all work on our Japanese. He would say the movements in Japanese and we had to do them.  We went through all of the basic movements for our upcoming exam.  I really need to start using Japanese when typing here so over next week, I am going to start doing so.  We went through all the block punch combinations and kicks.

We finished up the class with kata.  At the very end Sensei Noia told us to do one all out kata, the best that we could even though we were all very tired.  I was able to get through about half of the kata and then I noticed that my power was dropping off.  I was able to keep most of my form but it felt weak.  I do not feel too bad since I really didn’t get winded until the last few minutes of a very hard class.