Shotokanplanet.org

This is a log of my journey to Shotokan Karate Shodan and beyond.

Archives for October 2008

Torture is the only word I can use – 10/17/08 – Friday Karate class

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Just when I thought it was safe to go to class, Sensei Noia thought up a new form of torture.

All conditioning…

We started with five suicides across the gym.  Next came 30 push ups, 30 crunches and 30 squats.  After that, we did low walks back and forth across the gym.  Then came another 30 push ups, 30 crunches and 30 squats.

We then stood in two lines with a tape line in front of us.  From there, we had to jump, side to side, over the line for the length of the gym.  Next, we had to crisscross our feet over the same line.  Then came another 30 push ups, 30 crunches and 30 squats and somewhere else, we had to 10 more of each to complete a total of 100.  There we a couple of other drills on that line but my mind is too fuzzy to remember them.

We finished with some shifting drills.  We stood by the same line, shifted in and then out on an angle.

With the exception of the shifting, we did very little Karate but it was great to see how hard everyone worked.

One inch punch – 10/16/08 – Thursday Karate class

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Sensei Cieplik had us start with the normal kicking warm up.  For some reason, my front kicks felt better.  I am not sure how to describe it but they were moving more like whips instead of heavy tree trunks.

Let it whip…

Sensei had us work on a drill where instead of doing our blocks with full motion, we were to use our arms like whips and our hips for power.  The idea was to block with a small motion.  For example, when doing a downward block, we kept our blocking hand on our lower abs and used the whipping motion and the power of our hips to execute it.

Punch with the hips…

The next drill was to help us punch using our hips instead of our arms and upper body.  The idea was to punch with a very short but powerful movement.  If any of you have seen the one-inch punch from Bruce Lee, you will get the idea.

Sensei had us get a partner and a pad and had us work on doing the movement while actually hitting something instead of just punching the air.  It took some time for me to get the hang of it but once I realized that I had to lock my upper arm against my back, it really worked.  The way that it worked best for me was to put my finger tips against the pad and then push my hips forward and close my hand into a fist.

Kata the way I like it…

Sensei had us work on kata next.  The way I really like to do kata in class is when Sensei counts out each move and tells us exactly how he wants us to do it.  It makes me feel that each move is correct because I can focus on the movement itself.  We started with Heian Shodan for a little warm up and then moved on to Heian Nidan for our yellow belt in the class and Heian Sandan for the blue belt in our class.  After those kata, Sensei had us do Jion, Bassai Dai and Kanku Dai.

Hold that leg up – 10/14/08 – Tuesday Karate class

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Sensei Noia gave us an interesting class today.  We warmed up by doing 10 suicides across the gym.  I was ready to go home right after those but there was more to come.

Keep that leg up…

Sensei had us get a partner and pair up in the middle of the dojo.  He then had one of us do a side thrust kick while the other partner ran to the other side of the gym and did their own kata up to the first ki-ai.  The part that made it harder is that Sensei made everyone holding their leg up wait until the highest rank finished their section of kata.  We did this with side thrust kick and some stances.

Kata parts…

For the next part of class, Sensei had us do parts of kata.  For example, we did the punch followed by the block from Bassai Dai.  We then added the second punch and block, then the four back stances with knife hand blocks and finally the low side kick with ki-ai and then the back stance with knife hand block.  He had us work up from one or two moves all the way to the entire group of moves over and over again.

We finished class with one, full power and full speed kata for our belt rank.  It was a pretty tough class but I am sure that it is going to help prepare all us for our upcoming rank test.