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

Parts of Jion – 9/22/09 – Tuesday Karate class

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Very hard class today.  Sensei Noia not only made the class physically hard, it was mentally hard for me.

Get your pads on….

Sensei Noia gave us an interesting warm up tonight.  After we bowed in, he had us get our pads on and get a partner.  He then had us do about five minutes of free sparring to get the blood flowing.  We started with one partner and then got a different partner.  I have to really work on blocking backfists.  My second partner must have caught me half a dozen times with her backfist.  When I would move into attack, she would just step back and put the backfist about a half inch from my face.

After the free sparring, Sensei had us race our partner back and forth across the gym about six times.

Get your focus mitt…

For this drill, one partner held the focus mitt in front of them with it flat and their palm turned up.  We then stood in front of them with our left hand on their right shoulder and our right hand above our head.  We then did the dropping strike from Jion but instead of stepping forward, we stepped back away from our partner so that we didn’t hit them.  The draw hand was the key to my power.  If I just dropped my arm and down into a horse stance there was power but the pulling the draw hand back made a lot more.  We did the drill with both arms.

Next, we did the same movements but without our partner and moving just like the way they are done in Jion.

The next drill was the double block, downward and upward into the rising elbow strike from Jion.  For the first move, your partner held the focus mitt at about thigh level and we did the double block striking the pad on the downward block.  Next, our partner held the pad higher up and we did the rising elbow strike.  A lot of people call that move a block but I like to think of it as a strike, the way that Sensei Cieplik explained it to me.

The next drill started in a cross leg stance with the x-block.  From there we stepped back and did the double downward block, then stepped forward into the double outward block and then into the over head x-block.  We did these movements both separate and in groups but it seems like we spent a lot of time on cross leg stance.  After doing these moves many times, we added the outward block and stepping forward front punch.  The theme tonight for these moves was speed.  Sensei made us do many moves over again because we were moving too slow.

We finished up with some full kata.  Sensei had us do Jion as he counted, moving like we did in the drills above.  For our last kata, Sensei Noia let us do our own kata but he gave us a choice of doing however we wanted.  This meant we could do it all out, slow speed, fast speed, lots of power, low power, just hands, just legs or however we wanted.  I ended up doing Bassai Dai at a speed as fast as I could with less power.

It was really helpful working on Jion like this and I hope that we have a class like this but with the focus on Bassai Dai soon.

Common and not so common kihon – 9/17/09 – Thursday Karate class

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Another excellent class.  A lot of learning and a lot of energy was what Sensei Cieplik gave us today.

Common kihon…

Sensei had us work on many of our common kihon movements but also a couple that we don’t work on too often.

As part of our warm up drill, we do a movement that starts with our reverse hand out in front, we then switch hands as we throw a rear leg front snap kick then step back and set our kicking leg down behind us and throw a reverse punch.  Sensei calls this his form of jumping jacks.

We started moving forward and backward with downward block with reverse punch, then rising block with reverse punch, inward block with reverse punch and outward block with reverse punch.  We also did moving forward and backward with back stance and knife hand block.  The next drill was moving forward and backward in a back stance with knife hand block, front snap kick and front stance spear hand.

We also worked on our kicks.  Moving forward with front snap kick and front punch.  From a horse stance, moving sideways with side snap kick, side thrust kick, front snap kick to the side, roundhouse kick and hook kick.  Doing the roundhouse and hook kicks from a horse stance are something that I don’t recall doing before.

Not so common kihon…

One of the less common drills we did was moving forward and backward with reverse punch.  We don’t often do this drill but it mimics the way that we walk and instead of reverse punch Sensei often calls this correct punch.

Another move that we have done only once before is the back snap kick.  This is neat kick.  You stand in a low front stance with your back leg straight, you then snap your heel of your back leg to your hamstring.  If something, like the groin or tailbone of an attacker is in the way of that heel, it becomes a really effective weapon.  The idea is to not chamber the kick, instead you kick from the ground.

Another movement was stationary jab then step forward with reverse punch.  The key to this drill is to open your hips when throwing the jab then step forward and close your hips with the reverse punch.  When you do the jab, it makes your roll your upper body over your front leg which assists the stepping forward motion that closes the hips for the reverse punch.  Sensei said that this was a JKA drill that they spent a lot of time working on.

Kata…

We ended with some kata.  We did Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan and Heian Sandan.

Finish up with some partner stretching…

After kata, Sensei Cieplik handed the class over the Sensei Wail who had us finish up with some partner stretching.  One partner laid down on the floor and the other stood on our gi leg and picked each leg up first toward our head, second to the outside and last across our body.  The stretches felt really good and I was able to get in and out of the car easier then usual on the way home.

Karate class so hard, even my ears hurt – 9/15/09 – Tuesday Karate class

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In an effort to help prepare us for our Karate examinations, Sensei Noia has been working on our physical conditioning.  Needless to say, we have been having some of the hardest Karate classes ever.

Kata and burpees….

We started class with a run back and forth across the gym at least eight times.  This got the blood flowing and my legs warmed up for what was coming next.

Sensei Noia had us do Heian Shodan followed up with 15 to 20 burpees, after that we did Heian Nidan and another 15 burpees and then Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan, Heian Godan and Tekki Shodan with a set of burpees in between.  I was only able to do 10, 10, 5, 5, and 5 reps of the burpees.  I really need to work in this movement.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with burpees, you start standing upright, squat down low, throw you legs out behind you into the top of the push up position, do a push up, pull your legs back up into the squat position, jump up, off the floor into the standing position.  There are a bunch of videos on www.youtube.com demonstrating this exercise if you want to see it in action.  If you haven’t done burpees before give them a try, they are a really intense exercise.

Work those stances….

Sensei Noia focused on our stance training.  He had us get a partner and stood across from each other in a horse stance.  One partner put their left hand near their partners chin and punched as Sensei counted.  The other side the drill and then as one partner punched, the other side did rising blocks while holding the horse stance for 50 punches and blocks each.  We then did a similar drill but instead of a horse stance we did a shiko dachi where our toes were pointed out but our legs, thighs, were closer to parallel with the floor.

We then did a drill in a cat stance where we did a gedan knife hand block.  We then did the same stance but with the gedan knife hand block and a reverse punch.  The last drill in the cat stance was front snap kick, gedan knife hand block and reverse punch.

Next came holding a stance and counting to 10 in Japanese.  We started in horse stance, then shiko dachi, then cat stance with both left and right leg forward, back stance with both left and right leg forward and front stance with both left and right leg forward.

After 35 minutes of stance training, Sensei had us finish up with one kata.  He had us do our belt rank kata but as slowly as we wanted to do.  It took me almost four minutes to do Bassai Dai but I don’t think I could move any faster if I had to.  I might have exaggerated about my ears hurting because class was so hard but pretty much every part of my body hurts now, which is good.

Sensei Noia mentioned that we should try to practice our stances every day.  It doesn’t have to be as intense as our class but even five minutes a day will help improve our stances.