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

Archives for 2010

Kata is perfect – 7/22/10 – Thursday Karate class

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Today, Sensei Cieplik had us working on kicking drills. sweeps and lots of kata.

Very slow roundhouse…

Sensei gave us some extra detailed roundhouse kick drills.  From a front stance, we brought our leg up to the side and hold up enough to set a deep dish pizza on it.  From there, slowly rotate the kicking leg to the front, then kick with the heel up and toes down.  After the kick pull the foot back to our butt and set it down.

Sweeps….

For the next drill, Sensei had us work on some sweeping drills.  One thing that I never saw before is the way that he uses his entire side of his foot when doing the sweep.  He takes the whole inside edge of his foot and uses it to take your foot out from under you.  In this drill, our partner shifts in and as they do that, we use our foot to sweep their front foot out from under them.  The timing has to be really good or they will plant their front foot and the sweep will not work.

Kata….

We started kata with Heian Shodan, then from the end of Heian Shodan, we moved directly into Heian Nidan, then into Heian Sandan, then into Heian Yondan and then into Heian Godan.  Next, we did Tekki Shodan, Jion, Bassai Dai and Kanku Dai.  Next came Empi and Bassai Sho but I sat on the side to watch those.

Sensei Cieplik shared something that his Sensei, Yamazaki shared with him.  “Kata is perfectly made to keep you from doing it perfectly.”  No matter how many times you do a move perfectly, there is always another move that won’t be perfect during that one kata.

For my friend Dan:  The website that Sensei mentioned in class is http://www.nofirstattack.com/kata.html

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Kicks, punches and the kitchen sink – 7/20/10 – Tuesday Karate class

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I have sparred and have gotten hit a lot in the past but today was full of kicks, punches and the just about everything including the kitchen sink.  Sensei Noia worked us to the point of mental fatigue that I don’t remember being in, in the past.

Get your kata over with….

We started the class with some kata.  We did Taikyoku Shodan first, then all of the Heian katas, then Tekki Shodan, Jion, Bassai Dai and Kanku Dai.  We did all 10 of these katas in 12 to 15 minutes.

Get your pads on and get a partner….

We started with some free sparring drills but we could only use kicks to score with our partner.  We switched partners about five times.  The next sparring drill had us using only our hands to score.  This time, we switched partners four times.

Next, we made one long line across the dojo with our partner in front of us.  From there, we free sparred with a different partner until we sparring with everyone in the line across from us.  There were about 40 of us in the class so everyone sparred 20 different people.  It was non stop, constant sparring and  I would say that is was much harder than the anchorman sparring that I did at my test for Shodan.

I was holding my own pretty well, at least in my own mind, until I paired up with Sensei Plocharczyk.  He hit me more times than all of the other 19 people combined.  I lost count of how many times he hit me after the first 10 or so.  It was a good learning experience though.

We finished up with some push ups and class was over.

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Spin around – 7/16/10 – Friday Karate class

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Sensei Brien had us spend most of the class working on spinning self defense movements.

It felt like the room was spinning…

We paired up and one partner did the attack, step in with front punch.  The other partner  blocked the attackers punching hand with the front hand, spun around and countered with a spinning back kick.

The next attack was the same with step in and front punch.   The defender blocked with the front hand, spun around into a horse stance and did a take down with a back fist.  For this work, you need to drive the leg between the attackers into a front stance.  Driving that leg backward allows the hip to take their leg out from under them.

The next attack was a shift in with a jab.  The defender blocked with the front hand, pulled the front foot back then spin around and hook kick.  You have to pull the front foot back to make the distance between you and the attacker otherwise you will be too close and the hook kick will not work.

Next came the same attack as above.  The defender blocked with the front hand, did a hook kick with the front leg and then follow that up with a roundhouse kick.  We did the same attack but this time we blocked and did a roundhouse kick followed up with a hook kick.

The last drill we worked on had our attacker shifting forward and throwing a reverse punch.  The defender die a block with a reverse punch counter, then spin around with a fist into a horse stance.  The idea was to end up behind your attacker when executing the back fist.

This was a really good class but I wish that my body would have cooperated a little better with the kicks.  Sensei Brien told me that many of the spinning kicks can also be applied to sweeps and leg attacks.

This article was originally posted on www.shotokanplanet.org. Any reproduction on any other site is prohibited and a violation of copyright laws.