Shotokanplanet.org

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

Do your kata as if it is a real fight – 10/6/08 – Monday Karate class.

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Sensei Brien started us with a little extended warm up.  After the normal movements and static stretches, he had us work on some dynamic movements.

We walked back and forth across the gym swinging one leg up and touching our fingers extended out in front of us.  We then held our hands about chest level and brought our knees up to our palms that were facing down.

Hard and then harder stances…

Next, Sensei Brien had us get into a horse stance (kiba dachi) and we did front punches and sanbon zuki’s.  After that, we got into a shiko dachi and did the same front punches and (triple punches) sanbon zuki’s.  Being in shiko dachi makes kiba dachi feel like a cakewalk.

Intense kihon…

We worked on some of the standard kihon moves with various punches moving forward and back and then combinations.  We also worked on our back stances and knife hand blocks.

  • Front punch moving forward and back, along with Sanbon zuki.
  • Rising block reverse punch, inward block reverse punch.
  • Front snap kick moving forward and back.
  • Roundhouse kick forward, slow and then for multiple counts.
  • Back stance knife hand block, also with front snap kick and nukite.

One of the major points that Sensei Brien made was for us to make sure that our feet keep up with our hands.  In other words, if we did a punch moving forward or back, as our front foot lands, our punch should finish.

Side thrust kicks with a partner…

Next, Sensei had us get a partner.  One of us stood in a horse stance and the other had to do slow side thrust kicks over their hands held about belt level.  side thrust kick with partner in horse stance

Kata…

We then worked on Heian Sandan and Bassai Dai.  Sensei Brien wants us to do our kata with the feeling that we are in a real fight.  He felt that some of us were doing our blocks with little or no power and wants us to make sure that our blocks actually block an attack if they need to do so.

You are gonna get hit – 10/4/09 – Saturday Karate class

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I ended up missing Thursday and Friday classes since I wasn’t feeling like myself.  I think it started on Tuesday when I couldn’t keep my focus and it seems to have stayed with me until today.  I helped out with the other classes on Friday but I didn’t feel up to training.

Sensei Gatch started our class with a warm up of suicides back and forth across the gym.

Time for kata…

Sensei had us start with Jion.  He had us do it slowly on his count.  After that, he had us do the same kata but in under 30 seconds.  Needless to say, it was not pretty.

Sensei Gatch then spent some time trying to find a way to motivate us to do our kata with more passion or heart.  He asked each of us to find something that makes us mad and focus on that while we did our kata.  I am not sure how my kata looked to everyone else but it did feel a little different.  I normally do not focus on being mad but it did feel more powerful than usual.  I am not sure about the form but my moves felt like they ended stronger than usual.

Take the hit…

Sensei had us put on our pads and work on some sparring drills.  Instead of working on the normal drills, he had us work on hitting and getting hit. For the first drill, he had us get a partner and then when he said go, we both shifted in as fast as possible and then hit each other with a reverse punch.  The goal was to hit our partner before we hit them but in the end, both of us got hit.

The next drill was for us to free spar and keep hitting each other without stopping.  In normal point sparring, we hit and then stop when we get our partner or they get us but this time, we were to keep going until Sensei said stop.  The idea was not to make your partner puke but it was to have them and us take many controlled but stonger than normal hits to the body and light hits to the face.  Even Sensei Gatch put on the pads and jumped in with us.  I ended up hitting him maybe three times for the 15 or 20 that he hit me but netier of us stopped after being hit.

I wish that we had more classes like this since I feel that I don’t get hit enough when we do the point sparring drills.  I was able to commit to my attacks and not hesitate like I do when I spar for points.

It was a good class.

Lost in space – 9/30/08 – Tuesday Karate class

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I am having a hard time even describing this class.  I was lost in space and even though I could move fairly well, my head was somewhere in the clouds.

It was all downhill from the start…

Sensei Noia has us spend most of the class working on sparring distance drills.  We got a partner and started to work on simple movements like shift in, attack and shift out when our partner gets the right distance away from us.

We have done this drill many times in the past but for some reason, most of the class couldn’t get it.  We were starting too close and even doing simple things like spreading apart, so that we did not run into each other, was hard to do for most of us.

Kata with and without movement…

Kata went better than sparring, at least for me.  Sensei Noia had us do our kata without using our legs meaning we did only the hand movements.  That was kind of neat but we have done that before.

Next, Sensei had us close our eyes and we did the kata in our head without moving our bodies.  Even though we didn’t move, we had to breath as if we were doing our with moves.

The last kata drill was done sitting on the floor.  We were able to the hand movements but with no legs.

I am glad that the kata part of class went better than the sparring drills.