Shotokanplanet.org

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

Archives for June 2010

Same hand block and counter – 6/29/10 – Tuesday Karate class

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Sensei Plocharczyk filled in for Sensei Noia tonight and gave us a class full of self defense drills.

Get those legs warm….

We started with some simple kicking drills.  With a partner, each of us threw alternating front snap kicks.  After that we worked on alternating roundhouse kicks.  Then came a drill where we did rear leg roundhouse followed up with front leg roundhouse.

Same hand block and counter….

We spent a good amount of time working on some same hand block and counter drills.  One of the drills, that I really liked, started with our partner throwing a front hand jab that we block with our front hand and then immediately counter with a jab.  We did a similar drill where instead of countering with a jab, we used a back fist.

The only problem with classes like these is that so much information is shared but it is hard to absorb and remember all of it.  I know that I am going to be working on those two drills going forward.

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Rohai kata – 6/24/10 – Thursday Karate class

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Another excellent class with Sensei Cieplik.  Sensei also shared an interesting tip: In order to keep from putting too much stress on the body with acrobatic type movements, “Visualize the movement three times and do it once.”

Some different kihon drills…

After the warm up, we did knee strike with front snap kick.  Then, front snap kick with front punch.  Next came front leg front snap kick, rear leg front snap kick followed up with sanbon zuki (triple punch).

Get a partner…

We spent a lot of time working on some partner drills.  We start with a drills where one partner would jab and reverse punch and the other would block both attacks and counter with a jab.  For example, from kamae, with both partners in a a fighting stance, with left hand and leg forward, you jab with the left hand, reverse punch with the right.  The person on defense, blocks the jab with the left hand, blocks the reverse punch with the right hand and counter with a left hand jab.

The next drill is similar but instead of a using a jab to counter, you use a backfist instead.

The next drill is a little harder to put into written text and hard to remember too but I will try.  One partner stands in ready stance and the other parter is in a fighting stance.  From their the partner in the fighting stance is attacking with a front snap kick and the partner on defense is doing a low scooping block under the attackers leg, driving them back off balance and attacking their face with a jab or backfist.  It was a pretty dangerous movement and we had to do it very slowly in order not to take our partner down.

A kata called Rohai…

This was fun.  Sensei called all of the Shodan’s to the front and did a kata with us.  This kata is not from Shotokan but instead, it is from Yamazaki Sensei’s (Sensei Cieplik’s Sensei)  style called Ryobu-kai.  The kata is called Rohai and is equivalent to middle belt, maybe green belt level.  I wish I could describe this kata but even after doing it three times with Sensei, I cannot remember much more than the first few moves.

It was an awesome class!

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Six years of Karate – 6/22/10 – Tuesday Karate class

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Sensei Noia was filling in for another instructor at a different Dojo today and Sensei Plocharczyk and Sensei Gomez filled in and gave us an excellent Karate class.

It was six years ago today that my wife and I started taking Karate with Sensei Noia.  It’s been a lot of fun and hopefully their will be many more years like these ahead of us.

Horse stance and twist….

We started out in a horse stance, then turned to the left and threw a reverse punch and then we pivoted to the right and threw a reverse punch.  Next, we did the same thing but with two punches for one count.

Again, from a horse stance we did a front snap kick with one leg and then the other.  Next, we did two front snap kicks for every one count.

Get a partner and hit them….

For the next drill, we got a partner and a couple of pads.  We both started in a horse stance and threw a front punch.  Next came double front punch.  After that, we stood in a front stance, and did a rear leg front snap kick.  The first five kicks were slow and soft and the next five were full power and full speed.  We then switched our stance and kicked with the other leg.

After the kicks came reverse punches.  Again we did five slow and five strong and fast with both legs in front.  Next, we did shuffle up with front leg side thrust kick.

For the last drill, one partner stood about 10 feet away from the other and walked forward.  As the walking partner got the correct distance away the other partner was able to attack with one of the four techniques that we used above.  This is more a timing drill than power drill but when executed correctly, it stops the walking partner in their tracks.

We finished up doing our belt kata, one at medium speed and another kata at full speed up to the first kiai and then slow motion for the rest of the kata.  I really need to spend some quality time with Kanku Dai because remembering all 64 of those moves is proving to be harder than I thought.

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