Shotokanplanet.org

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

Kick and counter kick – 12/9/08 – Tuesday Karate class

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Today was an excellent class.  If was really a lot of fun for some reason.

Kick and counter…

Sensei Noia had us start out with some sparring drills.  He had us get a partner and start kicking each other back and forth to get us warmed up.  The next drill was for one of us to attack with a kick and the other to counter with only a kick.  This made it really interesting since I am so used to using my hands and not my legs for counter attacks.  The next drill was, one partner would attack, the other would block and counter with a kick.  The final drill was like that last but you could counter with a punch now.

Kihon…

Sensei took us through the more advanced basics for our exam.  Moving forward and backward, inward block from front stance, elbow strike in a horse stance and backfist combination.  Next was moving forward and backward with back stance, knife hand block, front snap kick and front stance spear hand.  He also took us through a bunch of kicking combination’s like front snap kick, side thrust kick, back kick, rounhouse kick and finish with reverse punch.

Between the groups of kihon, Sensei had us do one-step sparring with and without a partner.

Kata…

Sensei then had us do our kata as if we were at our test.  Since we were already pretty tired after a hard class, doing kata at that time will give a good indication of how we can expect to be at our exam.  I was pretty tired but my kata felt relaxed too.

Do you know your Japanese…

Sensei had us finish class doing our Japanese translations, he said the move or combinations of moves in Japanese and we had to demonstrate it.  I had front stance, jodan jab but I ended up punching chudan for some reason, duh.

It was a fun class.

Exam preparation part 2 – 12/8/08 – Monday Karate class

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Sensei Brien has taught some hard classes in the past but today was an all time high.

14 minutes of torture…

Sensei had us go through all of the basics for our upcoming test with no break.  We started with horse stance punches and blocks, right into moving forward and back with front punch and triple punch, then right into all combination’s forward and back and then the various kicking movements.  At one point, I was not able to catch my breath but somehow I endured through all 14 minutes without stopping and putting every ounce of power and spirit into each move.

kata…

After the torture was over, Sensei had us work on our kata.  He had us do our kata as a group a few times and the he had us go up in front of him by rank to do our kata.  I felt pretty good because he told me that I did good.  Getting a good from him or any of my Sensei’s makes me feel pretty good and this was no exception.

Anchorman…

Since some of my fellow students are testing for Shodan, Sensei had us work on some anchorman sparring drills.  I feel much better about this drill than I have in the past for some reason.  I am not sure if it is because what I have been working on with my free sparring or what but I sure feel that my confidence in sparring game is going up.

It was a really good class and one that I feel shows how hard I have been training since my last test.

Exam preparation is hard work – 12/1/08 – Monday Karate class

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Sensei Brien spent most of the class working on preparing us for our upcoming rank exam.  This was the last of our make up classes that were two hours long.

Kihon like you mean it…

Sensei had us start out with the usual basics, moving forward and back with front punches, sanbon zuki and blocks and counters.

It got interesting when we started working on our kicking drills.  When we were doing our side thrust kicks, Sensei had do two.  For example, we started in a horse stance, we then stepped across and did not one but two side thrust kicks and then pulled our leg back until Sensei told us to set our foot down.  He made a really good point, if you can do two good kicks in a row, you can certainly always do one good kick.  This really made a lot of sense to me and I hope to incorporate this into my training outside of the dojo.

Kata, any questions?…

After we finished our Kihon, Sensei Brien had us work on our kata.  He had us all do our own kata and then gave us a chance to ask him for advice on our kata.  After his advice, we were able to do the kata again and again trying to incorporate what he shared with us.  My question was how to properly execute fifth and fourth move from the end of Bassai Dai.  It is the low kick blocks.  I was having a hard time transisioning from the moves and Sensei said that I should turn on the my heels which seems to work pretty well for me.

One-step…

I forgot to bring my sparring gear to class so my wife and I ended up working on our one-step sparring together until class ended.