Apply your kata

Another excellent kata class today.

We started out doing each kata, Heian 1 through Heian 5, Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai, once and then doing the same katas but this time in mirror image.  Mirror image katas are always interesting but if you do not do them often, it can really slow things down.  It was a good warm up and a good wake up telling me that mirror image katas might be something that I need to spend more time on outside of the dojo.

Full and chunks of kata….

Sensei Noia started out by counting each move of Bassai Dai and then he had us done a full kata on our own.  After Bassai Dai, we split up the Kyu ranks and the Shodans for their respective katas..

We spent a lot of time working on Kanku Dai.  Sensei had use work on parts of the kata, then he broke it up into thirds and then we did the entire kata on our own.  We spent at least 20 minutes or longer just working on Kanku Dai.  We did Kanku Dai at least three times before we moved on. I really feel that breaking the katas down into bite size pieces or chunks makes a big difference.

Apply your kata….

After that, Sensei had us choose the kata of our choice, I picked Gojushiho Sho, and then get a partner, my partner did Bassai Dai, and work on an application (bunkai) of a movement or group of moves from our kata.

For example, in Gojushiho Sho, my attacker moves in with a front punch and reverse punch, I deflect both of them and then use a spear hand strike to his throat.  There are many different applications for each move but this just one that I thought of while doing this drill.