Shotokanplanet.org

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

Friday Karate class – 4/18/08 – Lots of kihon and pushed in ribs.

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I went to see my chiropractor, Doc Pusateri today and found out that I had a pushed in rib and my ribcage was torqued on my left side.  He just put his finger on my side and knew from my yelp what was wrong.  He was able to put the rib back in place and un-torque my ribcage in about five minutes and then he worked on my parts like always.  The pain was almost totally gone by the time I walked out of his office.  It was still there but only about 10 percent of what it was just a little while before.

I helped out with the two classes before mine like I do every week and wasn’t going to take my class since I didn’t want to hurt myself again.  I couldn’t just sit and watch so I ended up doing kihon for about half the class but I took it easy because Sensei Noia said to.  The combination moves did stress my ribs somewhat but not enough to cause any real pain like I felt in class last night.  We did some kicking combinations too and those are starting to finally improve.  I didn’t use any power on my moves and I did notice that my form improved a great deal.  I am going to have to evaluate my power output and consider taking it down a notch to improve my technique.

We finished up class with kata and I did Jion.  Again, it was a weak version of Jion, at least for me but I was able to complete the entire kata without too much pain.

Thursday Karate class – 4/17/08 – Good class but painful.

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I guess the title is a little deceiving.  What we did in class is what I would normally call painful but because of my ribs, it was.

We started our normal warm up and Sensei noticed right away that my kicks were off.  My foot was not too sore but bad enought to throw off my warm ups and my kicks at the start of class.  After a while, when I was warmed up, my foot started to feel better though.

My ribs are worse than they were yesterday and it made for a bunch of really painful kihon movements.  Any combination where I have to twist my hips was very painful.

One of the points that Sensei Cieplik, that really stuck in my mind, was to RELAX.  He made the comment that we are too stressed and that if we want our Karate to be better, we should relax.  Just let is go as he often says when we are doing our basics.  He has told us this many times before but for some reason, it stuck in my mind tonight.

Sensei has often told us this in the past but it is starting to become more important to my training.  He often says, when we are doing our kiohn, we need to; Practice, Persistence, GENTLE, Patience.  Practice our Karate as often as we can.  Be persistent and strive to do it correctly even if we don’t get it right away.  Be GENTLE, typed in caps to express the importance here, to our bodies and do what is within our physical abilities.  And have patience when trying to master our moves or ranks in Karate.

There is a lot of good advice in those four simple words and I am starting to understand them more as I gain more experience.  When I started Karate, I was so focused on getting my black belt as fast I could but as I am learning more, I realized that I still have a long way to go and that I need to follow those four simple words above.  Since I received my third Kyu, I am more interested in learning more details that I am about getting my Shodan.  I still want to get my black belt one day but my goal of only doing that has changed along the way.  It’s not like I am going to quit Karate after I get my black belt so I am going to take my time and enjoy myself and learn everything I can along the way.  When my black belt comes, it will but I am no longer worried about the destination and am more interested in the journey.

Another great point from Sensei, while we were doing some basics in a back stance is to think from behind.  The children often only think with the muscles in front such as abs, chest, quads, arms and shoulders where the adults can think from their back, rear shoulders, hamstrings  and lower back.  Children normally only think from the muscles they see where adults can use the muscles they cannot see behind them.

While doing some work with Tekki Shodan, Sensei mentioned that we should try to punch with our eye behind our elbow when doing the hook punch type movement.  If I understand this correctly, the idea is that if we drive from our elbow the movement will have power but if we use our fist, it will not be as strong.

Another excellent point that I should have been doing for ages is to squeeze my heels together in horse stance.   I know that Sensei has said this in the past but it didn’t sink in until tonight.  Squeezing the heels and tightening the butt and hamstrings makes the stance a whole different thing to me.  It puts my hips and legs in correct position and helps me keep my back upright instead of leaning forward.I spent some time after class talking to Sensei about what happened with my ribs on Tuesday and he gave me some good advice.  “Don’t get hit” he said.  At first, I was wasn’t sure what to think but then he explained something to me about one of his students that takes his Iai-Tate Do class and said that he keeps his elbows at his sides at all times.  Keeping the elbows in protects the ribs and he can block any body attacks with his hands.  If someone attacks his head, he just moves back.  In essence, the idea is to stay in close to the opponent and worry about blocking only the torso with the hands.  I am not going to be sparring until my ribs are fully healed but I plan on trying this advice then.

Even though I was really sore, it was still and excellent class as always.

Tuesday Karate Class – 4/15/08 – Some days just are not good.

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There are few days when I say I had a bad day at Karate but today was one of them.

I started class feeling really good. My hips felt better than before and everything was just feeling right but that just didn’t last. I did all of the kata that I know earlier today and they felt great. I was really ready for the upcoming tournament and don’t recall feeling “on” like this before. For the first time in a while, I felt that trained hard enough to do well at the tournament and even had my mind made up on winning.

Sensei Noia had us get our pads on as class started and then we were going to work on kihon and kata.

We started out doing some anchor man drills. It was good and I was able to throw a really nice front leg front snap kick. It was very fast and clean and I was able to do it without even thinking about it. After going against about eight people, we broke up into a larger group. I ended up sparring a young man that is a good fighter but lacks control and unfortunately for me, I caught a full power side thrust kick to the ribs.

One of the reasons that I do not like to spar is because I don’t like how point sparring and real fighting are not understood by some people. I am always overly careful not to hurt the people I spar with and I always use only enough power to score the point. My instincts told me not to spar today and I guess I should listened.

The worse part is that I also did something to my foot, I guess I didn’t notice because of my ribs, so now I have sore ribs and bad foot too. I was really psyched up and now this happens. I am going to have to rethink my strategy about sparring and Karate in general. I won’t retaliate against someone for hurting me in class just because they are careless and have no control but I also won’t subject my body to that type of abuse much more. At my age, if I need to get hurt like that, it is because someone is threatening my life and not because some kid cannot control his kicks.

As you can tell, I am really discouraged, disgusted and angry. I know this will pass and my sore body will heal sooner or later but for now, this rant makes me feel a little better.