Shotokanplanet.org

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

Double reverse punch – 3/14/08 – Saturday Karate class

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Sensei Plocharczyk has been spending a lot of time trying to help us understand how to move forward with double reverse punch.  We have been working on this drill for almost five weeks now.

Don’t think about it more than you need to…

The simplest way to explain this drill is like so;  Front a left foot forward fighting stance, take a half step with the right leg and punch with the right hand, then step all the way through and punch with the left hand.  It is a really simple move as long as you don’t think too much about it.

Sparring combination…

Next, Sensei has us work on some more combination drills.  We worked on shift with reverse punch,  rear leg roundhouse kick and reverse punch.  This is a wild combination that covers a lot of ground.

After that, we worked on shift with reverse punch, step with reverse punch and then rear leg roundhouse kick.  I have used this combination in the past and it is pretty effective for me.

Hold it for two minutes…

Sensei had us finish up with a little bit of conditioning.  We had to hold the plank position for two minutes.  I was pretty proud that I was able to hold it for the full time without cheating.  It was hard but good.

Point with the back hand – 3/12/09 – Thursday Karate class

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I had to take the last week off from classes because of a nasty cold but today was my first day back at it and it felt pretty good.

Have I mentioned how much I like working on Kihon before?  I am sure that I have and tonight was exceptionally likable.

Kihon…

Sensei Cieplik had us work on a lot of kihon drills today.  We spent some time working on the standard drills such as moving forward and back with front punch, the various block and punch combination moving forward and back along with moving forward front snap kick with front punch.

Sensei seemed to be paying extra attention to the moving forward and back with front punch.  I believe that he was looking for connection.  By connection I mean, connection to the floor, using the correct muscles of the legs, core and upper back.  When I have connection and I am doing this simple movement correctly, it is one of my favorites.  It just feel good.

Advanced kihon…

Sensei gave a more advanced drill to the 1st kyu and black belts.  He did say that the 2nd kyu’s and below could try it so I did.  This move felt really natural to me even though it is supposed to be more complex.  He had us do moving forward and backward reverse punch, with rising block and reverse punch.  There is a good amount of hip movement in this drill and it felt that a lot of power was generated on each move.

Point with the back hand…

I felt that this deserved it’s own heading.  Sensei had us work on back stance with knife hand block, front snap kick and nukite.  We have often done this movement in the past but Sensei said one thing today that made it totally different to me.  He noticed that when some of us were kicking or doing the nukite, we were pulling back on the draw hand and showing our intention.  He said to “point with the back hand.”  He meant for us to point at our opponent with the finger of the draw hand while we were kicking.  By doing that, it make the nukite come without pulling it back first.  Just thinking about it totally changed (improved) the execution for me.

Kata…

Sensei had us spend a lot of time working on kata.  We did at least 10 or more kata’s starting with heian Shodan.  Again, Sensei was looking for connection.  We also did heian Nidan, Heian Sandan, Heian Yondan, Jion and Bassai Dai.  I liked to think that I am pretty good shape but after doing all of those kata’s I could hardly breath.  I think Jion took the most out of me but I might have been trying too hard by tensing too many muscles that I didn’t need to tense.

This was an excellent class and I am glad that I felt well enough to take it.

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.