Shotokanplanet.org

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

Kicks and kata – 11/2/09 – Monday Karate class

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I don’t remember doing this many kicks in one class in a long time.

Get a partner…

We started out in a horse stance across from our partner.  From there, we did 10 each single punch, double punch and triple punch and then it was our partners turn.  For the next drill, we got a foam pad in stood it on the floor between us.  We then moved into a front stance and alternated kicks back and forth.  We started with front snap kicks and then we moved to front snap kick with roundhouse kick.

Kata and kicks….

For this drill, Sensei Brien had one parter find a place to do their belt kata and the other partner stood off to the side kicking over the foam pad.  We did side thrust kicks with both legs for one drill and front kick, side thrust kick and back kick for the other drill.  Each of us did kata’s.  When doing the single side thrust kicks, I was able to do somewhere around 30 with each leg in the time it took my partner to finish his kata and Sensei to call yame.

Many one-steps….

For the rest of the class, we worked on one-step sparring.  We started out doing head level front punches, 10 stomach level front punches, 10 front snap kicks and 10 side thrust kicks each.  After we did all those, we picked a new partner and did the same drill again.

There was a lot of good, functional training today and I think it really helps.

Go-no-sen, tai-sen and de-ai – 10/29/09 – Thursday Karate class

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Great class again!

Working on those basics kicks….

Sensei Cieplik had us start our kihon with three each, forward and backward, of rising block, downward block, inward  block and outward block.  After that, we worked on back stance with knife hand block, front snap kick and front stance spear hand.

After that, we worked on knee strike with front snap kick.  To make this movement work, after the knee strike you need to pull the hip back before doing the front snap kick.

Next, we worked on stepping across from a horse stance with side thrust kick.  After that we did side snap kick and then one step across with both kicks.

Go-no-sen, tai-sen and de-ai…

I hope the spelling above is correct since I found different spellings on Goggle.  Sensei had us get a partner and start working on go-no-sen.

Go-no-sen is a where person attacks you, you block their attack first and then counter attack them.  For example, your partner attacks you with a front punch to the head, you step back and execute a rising block, pause for a very short time and then return a counter punch or other attack.

Next, we worked on tai-sen.  This is where a person attacks and you block and counter attack at the exact same time.  For example, your attacker throws a punch at your stomach, you turn your body and use one hand to redirect the punch and hit them with a counter attack at the same moment.  I often us this when doing one-step sparring and it works really well for me.

The last concept that we worked on was de-ai.  This is the more difficult concept to work on.  The idea is you attack your attacker before they attack.  For example, you and your attacker are face to face and before they get to throw their attack, you see their intent and attack them first.  Most people show a tell when they begin their attack such as shrugging their shoulders or widening their eyes but some people say they can feel the energy of their opponents attack before they actually do them.

Many kata’s….

Sensei had us spend a good amount of time working on kata. We started with Heian Shodan all the way to Heian Godan.  We did Tekki Shodan three times and then spent the rest of the class working on Jion, about four times, and Bassai Dai.

One thing that Sensei has often told us, when working on our kata, is that we should have good posture when we do our kata.  Even though, Sensei has said this many times and I thought I understood it, I think tonight I was able to actually do it.  I focused on keeping my chest out when I did my kata, instead of trying not to lean forward when doing them.  Putting my mind in that other place made the kata feel like it came together.  It felt really different and when I looked on the mirror, I noticed that I was only leaning a very tiny bit forward.  I am not sure if it is competition winning kata but it felt really good and it didn’t put the strain on my lower back like when I would try to force myself to have an upright posture in the past.

Work those stances – 10/27/09 – Tuesday Karate class

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Sensei Noia has been helping us prepare for our upcoming rank examinations and tonight was almost exclusive stance training.  Sensei started class with a long warm up and stretching routine.

Stance, stance, stance….

We started out in a horse stance with front punch, then double punch, then triple punch and rising block.

After the horse stances, we started in a back stance with knife hand block, we then turned and did another knife hand block, then turned again with knife hand block and stepped forward into a back stance with knife hand block.  Sensei wanted to make sure that we were shifting our body as we changed from one direction to the other.

Next we started in a back stance with a knife hand block and moved into a cross leg stance with a low x-block then stepped back into a back stance with knife hand block.

One of the moves that I liked most tonight was starting in a front stance with a downward block, then pivot on both heels to on and angle behind into a front stance with downward block to the front then pivot back facing forward and reverse punch.  The key to block after the pivot is that your body is facing the corner behind you but you are downward blocking an attack from the front with your head facing front.  This is move similar to the one in the kata, Empi.

The next drill was front stance with downward block, move into cross leg stance with downward punch, then step backward into front stance with downward block.

We then worked on back stance with knife hand block, pull back into cat stance with low knife hand block, back to back stance with knife hand block.  The key here is to pull the front leg back from the back stance into the cat stance and to make sure that the back heel turns from 90 degrees in the back stance to 45 degrees in the cat stance.

Next came stationary cat stance with front leg front snap kick.  After that came stationary cat stance with punches.

We finished up with one kata.  The kata that we are going to do at our exam.  Even though my legs were like jelly, my Bassai Dai felt pretty good overall.