Below is a list of the most viewed posts on Shotokanplanet.org for 2013.  Oddly enough, the majority of the most read posts are from years past, even as far back as 2009.

1 – Go-no-sen, tai-sen and de-ai – 10/29/09 – Thursday Karate class – This post from 2009 is about a topic that seems to get a great deal of interest.  The concepts of how we attack and counterattack, with the related timing, is always a hot topic and one that must be harder to grasp. I know that I am still fighting with these concepts myself and because of that, I wrote a more detailed and updated version of this post with more information on ShotokanMaster.com.

2 – 2011 WSKA Championships – Even though this is a short post from over two years ago, the 2011 World Shotokan Karate Championships still gets a lot of visitors.  Maybe it’s the link to the youtube videos or it could have been people looking for information about the 2013 championships but either way, it is still very popular.

3 – The end of an era but we will still move forward – Happy Retirement Sensei Cieplik – 2013 was the end of an era when Sensei Cieplik retired and it showed how many people were interested by the large number of views.  For those you outside of my club, you might not know Sensei Cieplik but a lot of the information on this website if from concepts that he has shared with me over the last seven years.

4 – Combination kihon – I am not certain but I think the large amount of interest in this particular post is how to do a lot of kihon training in a small space.  I know that doing kihon in a elevator or in a small cubical space has been part of my training over the years and I assume that many others think the same way.

5 – 2013 Karate Nationals – It seems that big tournaments are a popular subject and the 2013 Karate Nationals was one of those big tournaments.

(Bonus)

A punch with a twist – I had to add this post to the list of my top 5 posts because the number of views was just a few away from the number of views of our number 5 post.  This was one of my longer posts but I have feeling that the punch with a twist drill, near the end of the post,  was the topic that was being read most.

I knew that this day was coming when after the last Thursday class of 2012 Sensei mentioned that this would be his last year end in the Glenview dojo.  I tried my hardest to not believe it but as 2013 progressed, I realized that Sensei was going to retire.   That day came today when after 42 years and 18 days of sharing Karate with us he took his Karate belt off for one last time.

There are many accomplishments that Sensei Cieplik has achieved over those years such as, turning little children into adults, training world champions, turning introverted students into confident and strong  people and most importantly he has been the person that all of us has looked up to.  He did all this and never once asked for anything more than us to do our best and show him our smiles.  For many, he has taken on the roles of father, brother, uncle, mentor and to me, a very close friend that has enriched my life just by knowing him.

Even though there were many tears shed tonight, there were also many smiles because we are all grateful to have trained with him and are very happy that he can enjoy his retirement in good health.

In the seven years that I have trained with Sensei, I have many great memories of things that he shared with me and I would like to share two of those with you.

The first one that I brought with me to every class were words that Sensei often said to all of us, “when you are here on my floor, you are safe and I will protect you from whatever is out there.”  No matter how bad a day I had at work or whatever went wrong in my life, I knew for those two hours I was safe  and could focus on Karate and nothing else.  Each and every Thursday, I couldn’t wait to get to class because I knew that it was my time and that Sensei would make sure that no one would take it away from me.  For many years, I always walked out of the dojo behind Sensei because I felt that I needed to have his back in return for him always keeping me and my family safe while we were there.

The second is something that Sensei said to a group of students many years ago.  He told a story about when he asked his Sensei what he could do to repay him for all that he had shared with him and his response was, share that I have shared with you with two students so that they can carry on the art.  That is something that I have tried to do for many years now.  All the students that work with are getting a part of Sensei Cieplik when they train with me.  When I am helping with class, many of you will hear he me say, “with the body”, “from hip”, “don’t drop my pizza”, “scare then with your foot work”, “punch them with your knee” and many more and all of those are things that Sensei has shared with me that I am trying to pass on to you so that you can share this with your students and carry on the art.

No matter when or where we train, Sensei will always be in our hearts and it is up to us to continue training, share with others what he has shared with us and move forward.

Please leave a comment below and tell us what Sensei Cieplik has shared with you.

Class today was a very special class.  This was the last Karate class that Sensei Cieplik will teach at the Glenview dojo.  This was one of the largest classes ever with well over 50 students both current and past.  The energy and spirit in the dojo was higher than ever.  Everyone there put everything they had on the floor and you could feel it.  The kiai’s were deafening and I don’t think there was one person that didn’t listen to every word that Sensei spoke with anything less than intense focus.

There is no way to describe the emotion.  We were all there knowing that today would be the last Karate class in the dojo where it all began.  Sensei Cieplik has touched so many students lives and even though we are sad to see him retire we also are grateful that we were able to train with him and hope that his retirement is everything that he hopes it will be.

We started out with our normal warm up of 20 front snap kicks to the front with each leg, 10 knee strike, front snap kick, knee strike and front snap kick, 10 front snap kick and side thrust kick to the front and then three of the patented front snap kick the front, side thrust kick to the side, back kick to the rear, roundhouse to the front, hook kick to the front and front snap kick.  For the first time in seven years that I have been training with Sensei, I felt that I was able to do the last kicking drill like it should have been done.

We did no hip, little hip and big hip which translates to outward block, Jab with hip and reverse punch.  Moving forward with no hip puts the hips at the correct 45 degree angle, jabbing opens the hip up the rest of the way and the reverse punch closes the hip.

Sensei has been working on sharing a concept with us for some time now and this is about all attacks do not need to be met with hard strikes or hard blocks. The idea is to receive the attack and wash it away.  This means that we can gently redirect the attack instead of meeting it head on with a hard block.  This is much live ocean waves coming in and out.

After this, Sensei asked all of us to line up and he came up to each one of us to say goodbye.  If you ever wanted to see some of the best Karate students in the world with tears in their eyes, this was that moment.

After saying goodbye to each of us, Sensei said many people wait until they are gone from the planet to pass on their belts but he felt that his should be passed on while he is still here.  At that moment Sensei handed his belt to our special guest, Arnaldo, to carry on the art.  He picked up his coat, his packages, bowed and walked out the door of the dojo for the last time as a Karate instructor.

Sensei’s last request was for all of us to stay a little longer and work on a self defense drill with Sensei Arnaldo.  For this drill, an  attacker grabs at your Gi or coat on the street and you trap their hand against your body and make them drop to the ground.  This is a self defense drill that works really well, I know because I have had it demonstrated on me.

After that, we bowed out and knew that when we walked out of the dojo that day, it would be the end of an era.  Sensei also made the point that even though he is no longer teaching, Sensei Wail will carry on the art at the Glenview dojo and not only share his skills but those skills that Sensei Cieplik has passed on to him over the years.

One thing that all of us who had the honor of training with Sensei Cieplik have, even though he will no longer be sharing his Karate with us in the dojo, is his Karate is in our hearts whenever we train.  Every time we train Karate his spirit will be there and for that I am grateful.