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

Archives for 2011

Back stance to front stance and punch – 6/30/11 – Thursday Karate class

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Sensei didn’t have us do many drills today but we did a lot of movements.It’s about us not I…..

Sensei had us spend a lot of time doing his form of jumping jacks today.  Most who take his classes know of this drill but I will try to explain it in detail here for those who don’t.

You start out in a front stance with your reverse hand out.  For example, left foot forward and your right hand out in a revese punch.  From there, you do a front snap kick with your right leg, reach with your left hand, put your kicking leg back down behind you and throw a reverse punch with your right hand as your kicking foot hits the floor behind you.  When we do this drill, Sensei wants all of us to do it as a group in sync.  This drill is about us not about I.

With the body…..

For our next drill, from a front stance, we did knee strike, turn 90 degrees and step down.  Then the same but with a front snap kick after the knee strike.  The same again with a block during the turn and then with a reverse punch as we stepped down.  The key to this drill is to use the hips to make the turn and not the shoulders or to do it with the body.

For the next drill, we started in a back stance and then moved forward into a front stance with a front punch and then back into a back stance to start over again.  This drill really opens up the hips.

Next, from a front stance, we did a front leg front snap kick followed by a rear leg front snap kick and then a triple punch.  The key to the triple punch at the end was to not twist when doing the punches.  Also, the first punch goes to the face, I like the throat, and the second an third punches go lower but to the exact same spot.

We spent the rest of the class working on some partner drills.  We have practiced this drill before but it seemed to work better today.  For this drill, one partner was standing upright in a relaxed ready stance, the other partner stepped in to punch and the standing partner moved to the side that the punch was coming from, blocked, punched the rib area and stepped past the punching partner.

When Sensei did this drill with my son, Donald, he ended up standing about two feet behind Donald.  The idea is to get out of the way of the punch and block it, hit the attacker, step past them and get behind them to attack again if needed.  It is a fast moving version of one-step sparring that we often work on.

One other thing to consider is the amount of power on the punch to the ribs.  You have one person moving in a punching and another person moving past them and hitting them in the floating rib area.  I would assume, if executed properly, the attacker would be in some serious pain with some broken or really sore ribs.

Even though we didn’t do a lot of drills in class today, we did have a lot of time to get a good understanding of the drills we were working on.

It’s all about Jion – 6/28/11 – Tuesday Karate class

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Sensei Noia made the focus of this class almost entirely about Jion.  Jion has never been my favorite kata, I go up to the first kiai with everything and it seems to go downhill from there.  Spending a class working on Jion is something that I need more of.We started in a horse doing front punches then double punches and finally triple punches.  From the same horse stance we moved into alternating front snap kicks and then side thrust kicks to the front.  After just a few side thrust kicks, I am sure that my horse stance didn’t look much like a horse stance any longer.

All about Jion….

For the next drills, we turned sideways and started in a horse stance.  From there, we did moving forward with one two palm strike for each count.  Then then two, followed by three palm strikes for each count.  Next came moving forward with the dropping strike once, then twice then three times for each count.  We did a lot of these and spend a good amount of time on only these moves.

After that, we did the first move of Jion at least 12 times, then came the first three moves of the Jion for another 12 or so and finally a couple more sequences of moves up to the first kiai.

This doesn’t look like much in typed text but my legs were certainly telling a much different story afterwards.

A little more kata…

We finished up class with Bassai Dai and a kata of our choice.  I ended up doing Kanku Dai.

I really believe that kata specific classes like these help a great deal but we do not do them often enough.  Either way, it was a good class and I liked it.

 

Keep your posture for better kicks – 6/23/11 – Thursday Karate class

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Sensei Cieplik is still working on our kicks. One of the key points that he made today, while we were kicking, was to keep our posture upright to make our kicks better.

Make those roundhouse kicks better and keep your posture…..

After our warm up Sensei had us work on moving forward with front snap kick and front punch.

Next came moving forward with roundhouse kick.  When doing the roundhouse kick, keep your hands at your sides.  The thumb of the side that the front leg is on should be behind the middle side of your leg.  By keeping your hand in that position, it keeps you from using your shoulders when kicking and it allows you to kick  with the body.

For the next drill, we turned sideways and started with our knee pointing to the front (our side) like the start of a roundhouse kick.  From there , we held our knee out to the side and pivoted from heel to the ball of the foot across the floor.

The next drill was a stationary roundhouse kick where we held our leg to the side, roundhouse kicked and snapped it back faster than you throw it.  Just like a front snap kick, the kick should be about 30% speed and the retraction should be about 70% of the speed.

The last roundhouse kick drill was moving forward with jab, reverse punch and roundhouse kick.  The key to this, and almost everything in Karate, is keeping your posture upright.  Once you start to lean over, your kicks come from the shoulders and balance and most of the technique goes downhill from there.

Kihon, partner drills and continuous kata….

After all the roundhouse kicks, we did moving forward and backward downward block, inward block, rising block and all with reverse punch.  Sensei said to keep our arms in close to our body when doing the kihon.  He also said that a good way to practice is to do basics in a dark roon with a candle behind you.  This will allow you to see if your arms are staying in close to your body in the shadows.  Just be careful not to start your house or yourself on fire.

Next we did stepping across in a, horse stance, then the same with side thrust kick, then the same with side snap kick and finally both kicks.

We then got a partner.  From there, the idea was to keep center but take center away from your partner.  From a fighting stance, one partner was moving in a circle, both clockwise and counter clockwise  around the other partner while the other partner was turning and pointing at the center of the moving partner.  We then did the same drill but instead of pointing at our partners center, we could use a reverse punch.

Next came kata.  Sensei had us Heian Shodan all the way through Heian Godan in one continuous group.  The next part about this is that it takes under five minutes to do all five katas.  From there we did Heian Godan followed by Bassai Dai three times in a row.  The last kata we did was Tekki Shodan where Sensei counted out each move for the students who just too their new rank and are now doing that kata.

Some more words of wisdom from Sensei.  The technique will rise when you challenge your balance.  I take this to mean, if you have to fight your balance in your stance, your technique will look much better and be more effective.  It also, helps you keep better posture.  For example, a good back stance, that fights your balance, makes the knife hand block in Bassai Dai or any kata better.