Shotokanplanet.org

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

Sparring is tiring – 3/3/09 – Tuesday Karate class

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Sensei Noia had us start this class with some free sparring drills as a warm up.  This lasted for close to 20 minutes and I was pretty much spent by the time we finished.

Focus mitt time…

After our sparring warm up, we moved on to some focus drills.  Sensei Noia had us get our focus mitts and we worked on various target drills.  One of us would hold the mitt in front of our stomach for a reverse punch or front snap kick or on the side of our body or head for a roundhouse or hook kick.  As we got going, Sensei had us move the focus mitt at greater speeds to get our partner to react faster.

Self defense…

We spent the rest of the class working on knife hand block self defense drills.  These drills confuse me more often than not.  When we do the drill to the inside of our partners punch, I get it but when moving to the outside of the punch, I was having issues.  I guess I need some practice with this drill.

Better horse stance means better Karate – 3/2/09 – Monday Karate class

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Sometimes it is not what is said, it is how it is said.  Today was one of those enlightening moments that don’t come around often enough.

Good tension…

Sensei had us start class working on our stances by going through some of the Heian katas.  When doing a blocking stance, Sensei wants us to have our leg tension to the outside and when doing a strike our tension needs to be to the inside.  When the tension is on the outside, the back leg is slightly bent and the back hip is open and in a striking stance, the back leg is straight, the knee is facing down and the hip is closed.  We did Heian Shodan and Heian Nidan paying all attention to the tension of our legs and the position of our hips.  Sensei also had us make sure that we pushed the pelvis up and tightened the ab muscles at the end of each move.

Many good things can come from a good horse stance…

Sensei Brien shared an interesting lesson tonight.  He had made a comment that if your horse stance is good, your front stance will be good, your back stance will be good, your roundhouse kicks will be better, your side thrust kicks and your Karate will be better in general.  There is a lot of good things related to horse stances.

Sensei had us work on a tough horse stance drill.  We moved into a horse stance and then stepped to the side and brought our feet together and then pushed back into the horse stance.  Sensei wanted us to push into the stance and lock our muscles to stop ourselves.  When doing the horse stance, Sensei said that our gi pants should have a line across the front when the proper tension is applied, the knees need to be pushed out as far as possible and the gluteus and ab muscles need to be engaged fully for the stance to be correct.

This explanation about tightening the gluteus muscles really hit home for me.  I have been told this in about 10 different ways over the last few years but this small little change in words gave me what I needed to finally get it.

Kata and kumite – 2/28/09 – Saturday Karate class

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Both Sensei Plocharczyk and Sensei Gatch spent time with our class today.

Kata but slower…

Sensei Gatch had us work on Bassai Dai but in slow motion.  He counted our each move for us and gave us corrections to little details that many (I) of us were missing.  For example, in the first move, most of us were not using enough power.  Sensei Gatch said that the first move of the kata needs to at least look like it would work and after having me hold the pad for many of my fellow students, I think we all got it.  We ended up going through Bassai Dai one and half times in 20 minutes with a new meaning to slow kata.

Double reverse punch…

Sensei Plocharczyk had us work on some Kumite drills.  We worked on a drill that I have done before but never really got a good handle on.  This particular drill was two steps with two reverse punches.  That description is a little misleading since the first punch goes almost at the mid point of the first step.  I had a really hard time getting my mind wrapped around this drill.  After that, Sensei gave us some time to work on free sparring.  I tried to use this drill when doing free sparring but I ended up throwing jabs and reverse punches instead of two reverse punches.  I really need some more practice with this one.