Shotokanplanet.org

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

Kick your partner – 1/8/10 – Friday Karate class

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Today was my first time taking Friday class with Sensei Brien.  The dojo was really cold so Sensei made sure that we were well warmed up.

Warm up…

Sensei had us start out with some punches while standing in a horse stance.  Next, we did a lot of stationary front snap kicks.  We continued to warm but with shifting drills, first with jabs and then reverse punches.  One shifting drill that stood out was shift in with rising block and reverse punch then shift back with downward block and reverse punch.

Kick your partner….

Next, Sensei had us get a partner.  We started in a horse stance doing block punch, block punch drills.  After that, we worked on kicks.  We alternated both front leg and back leg roundhouse kicks with both feet in front.  After that, we worked on side thrust kicks and some hook kicks too.

Take the angle….

We finished up working on some shifting drills.   We stood across from our partner and starting shifting.  From there, whenever Sensei counted, we shifted on an angle but still staying in front of our partner while moving in a clockwise and then counter clockwise motion.  After that, we did the drill on our own with one partner leading and the other following.

We finished up class with some cool down stretching which felt good after all those kicks.

Back to class – 1/05/10 – Tuesday Karate class

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Today was our first official day back in Karate class after close to two weeks off. Sensei Noia made sure that he started the new session and new year with some hard work.

Job a lap and do a kata….

We started out class with a jog around the dojo and then a kata.  We did Heian 1 through Heian 5 and Tekki Shodan.  This is one of my favorite warm ups but by the time I get to Heian Yodan, I am pretty sure that my kata was getting ugly.

Get a partner….

Next, we worked on some stance and basic block and punch drills.  We started in a horse stance, standing in front of our partner.  From there, we did a jodan punch and our partner did a rising block, then we did a chudan punch and our partner did an inward block and for the last movement, we did a gedan punch and our partner did a downward block.  It was tough holding a horse stance for such a long time.

Work those hips…

For the next drill, our partner stood in a horse stance and held a pad out in front of them.  We stood across from them, facing sideways, we then raised our leg up directly to the side and touched the bottom of the pad.  After that, we held our leg out straight and circled the pad with our foot three times in each direction.  Sensei had us do this 10 times with each leg and on the last count, we held our leg up to the side while our partner did a kata (Jion, Bassai Dai or a black belt kata).   This was an extremely hard drill!

One step with kata moves…

We finished up class doing some one step sparring.  For this, Sensei wanted us to block and counter with a move from a kata but not using an inward, outward, rising, downward or reverse punch.   I used a back stance, with knife hand block and reverse ridge hand counter attack.

It’s good to back, even if walking will be hard for the next few days.

Mirror image kata – 12/21/09 – Monday Karate class

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Being that this was the last Monday class of 2009, Sensei Brien gave us something fun to work on today.

Mirror image kata…

I never spent much time thinking about doing kata in mirror image even though I often do Heian Shodan and Heian Nidan that way when I help out with the various classes each week.

All the Hiena kata”s didn’t really cause many issues for me but doing Bassai Dai in mirror was really tough.   I really head to think about each move before I did it but I eventually made it through the entire kata.  This really gave the kata a different feeling because I had to actually think about each move before I did it instead of just doing each kata without thinking.

This was a great class and I hope we do this a little more often.