Archives for 2011

I have said this many times, that Sensei Cieplik says things that totally change the way that I view Karate and today was one of those moments.  He said three things that changed my entire attitude toward kata, in a good way.  He said, “like yourself, like what you are doing and know that you will improve.”

Uncommon kihon…

Sensei had us work on some kihon drills that were a little different than normal Shotokan drills.  We started with a rising block drill where we brought the blocking hand from our side, up the middle of our body vertically and twisted our hand at the end of the blocking movement.  Bringing the block up through the center-line of the body gave the movement a much different feel.  This felt much more like a strike instead of a block.

For the next drill, we stood upright, with our knees loose or soggy knees as Sensei calls them.  From there, we put one hand above our head, to the side and did a rising strike with the other hand.  The drill resembled an upright punch that ended in the rising block position.  The idea was to turn the fist at the end of the movement.

We continued with more drills but this time, we loaded up the back leg and then did inward, outward, rising and downward blocks.  The idea was to do these movements with the body, not just the arms.

Three things to improve your Kata….

We finished up with some kata and the important points that Sensei made.  When doing your kata, you have to do three things.  The sentences after each point is my opinion or how I defined the points that Sensei made.

1. Like yourself – If you like yourself, it will show in your attitude and also in your performance.
2. Like what you are doing – If you like what you are doing, it makes almost anything easy to do.  Since we pay for our Karate classes, I assume that most people like doing it or they would not pay for class or even come to them.
3. Know that you will improve – Each move you do, not matter how small or big is going to help you improve.  I like to look back at old videos of myself from past tournaments to help me clearly see that I have improved and as long as I keep training, I will continue to improve.

Not only do these three points apply to Karate, I feel they apply to life.

There are some classes with Sensei Noia where I wonder if the warm up is going to be harder than the Karate drills.  Today was one of those days that made me wonder.

Tough warm up…..

Sensei had us start doing the burpee’s, jumping jacks, push ups and running is place.  For each exercise, the first and second sets lasted for at least 30 seconds and the last set was 15 seconds of torture.

After the warmup, we started in a horse stance and did single punches and double punches.   While still in a horse stance, we moved into a cat stance and punched, then back into a horse stance and punched again.  The idea was to bring the legs close together when moving from the horse stance into the cat stance to protect the groin.

Kicks and combinations…..

Next, we did kicks from a cat stance.   Next came combination front snap kick and back kick, then side snap kick and side thrust kick.  The next drill, we did four kicking combinations, front snap kick, back kick, side thrust kick and side snap kick, each time Sensei counted.  When we did these kicks we were able to put our foot down and balance between each kick.

Next we did moving forward, downward block with reverse punch, rising block with reverse punch and outward block, jab with reverse punch.  The idea of this drill was to allow us to do the movements in a small space but moving our legs in the follow way.  From the left foot forward front stance, we brought the right leg to the front leg, stepped back with the left leg and did the block and punch combination.  We then did the same but opposite.  Another drill was to bring the front leg to the back leg, then step forward and do the block and punch combination.   You can get in a good working in small 4 by 4 foot space.

Kata….

We finished up with some kata.  Sensei had us start very slow doing Heian Shodan and Jion.  We then picked up the speed for another Jion and then we did Bassai Dai with full power and speed, twice.