Shotokanplanet.org

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

Takedowns can be painful – 1/10/09 – Saturday Karate class

by Leave a Comment

Sensei Gatch started us out with a hard warm up.  We did 2 sets of suicides and 2 sets of low walks back and forth across the dojo.

Sparring drills…

Sensei Plocharczyk took us through almost a full hour of sparring drills.  We started with some simple drills, like shuffle in and jab.  Then came shuffle in, jab and reverse punch.  We then started working on front leg, roundhouse kicks.

Sensei then made things a little harder and we did shift in front leg roundhouse with rear leg roundhouse.  After that, we did a drill, that I have never done, where we stepped in, pivoted on the front leg and ended up next to our partner depending in if they threw a front leg roundhouse or read leg roundhouse.  This drill was to help us prepare for takedowns coming up.

The idea was to step in, out of the way of the roundhouse kick, block and catch the kick, turn your partner and take then down to the ground all in one smooth motion.  Easier said than done for me though.

Takedowns…

Next came some free sparring.  I didn’t have a partner so Sensei Gatch was kind enough to beat on me for a few minutes.  The catch with the free sparring is that we could only score with a roundhouse to head or a takedown.  Sensei Gatch threw at least 15 kicks at me for the first 30 seconds but he couldn’t land them, luckily for me.  For the next round, he kinking put his big toe in my eye.  After that, he faked a roundhouse kick and took me down to the floor.  On the way down, I ended up straining my leg bicep.  Needless to say, my 220 pounds doesn’t hit the floor too gracefully but both us walked away without any serious damage to our bodies.

Class gets better and better – 1/08/09 – Thursday Karate class

by Leave a Comment

Sensei Cieplik showed gave a few new things to work on and think about.

Sparring type movements…

Sensei had us a do a different warm up drill to help get our hips stretched out.  He had us do inside out crescent kicks.  He told me to do alternating legs and it really opened up my hips more than some of the other dynamic stretches that I have done in the past.

Sensei had us start with many kicks for a long warm up.  He had us start with shifting forward with a job.  Next came shifting forward with reverse punch and then shifting forward with jab and reverse punch.

After that, we did a different drill that I don’t remember ever doing.  We took three steps and did a reverse punch with each step.  It was hard for me to get coordinated enough to move quickly when doing this drill.  We spent a good amount of time working on this drill before we moved on.

Kata…

Sensei had us work on kata next.  We started with Heian Shodan, then Jion, then Heian Nidan, then Heian Yondan.

Sensei made a really good point about kata;

When showing it to others he said if you just count the numbers for each move, they will never understand the kata or learn it very well.  I had talked to him about this after class and he suggested that when showing kata to others, start with the Bunkai for Heian Shodan and let them actually participate in the process, even if working with the pre-Karate students.

Stances with connection – 1/6/09 – Tuesday Karate class

by Leave a Comment

Sensei Noia gave a great class tonight.

Feel the connection…

We started in a horse stance and then did a very slow punch.  The idea was to make sure that we were using our core and that we had a full connection to the floor.  Next, we did a horse stance with a slow two hand punch.  After that, we did a horse stance, move into front stance with a two hand punch, move into back stance with knife hand block and then draw back into a horse stance.

Get a partner…

Building on the last drill, we got a partner and moved into a horse stance and did the two hand punch again.  This difference is that our partner pushed on various body parts to make sure that we have connection and that the muscles we should be using were engaged.  Next, we did a front stance with a slow punch and then we did the thing moving forward with a block or punch.

This was an intense class and it really worked the muscles in a different way than when we are moving quickly.