Shotokanplanet.org

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

Lost in space – 9/30/08 – Tuesday Karate class

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I am having a hard time even describing this class.  I was lost in space and even though I could move fairly well, my head was somewhere in the clouds.

It was all downhill from the start…

Sensei Noia has us spend most of the class working on sparring distance drills.  We got a partner and started to work on simple movements like shift in, attack and shift out when our partner gets the right distance away from us.

We have done this drill many times in the past but for some reason, most of the class couldn’t get it.  We were starting too close and even doing simple things like spreading apart, so that we did not run into each other, was hard to do for most of us.

Kata with and without movement…

Kata went better than sparring, at least for me.  Sensei Noia had us do our kata without using our legs meaning we did only the hand movements.  That was kind of neat but we have done that before.

Next, Sensei had us close our eyes and we did the kata in our head without moving our bodies.  Even though we didn’t move, we had to breath as if we were doing our with moves.

The last kata drill was done sitting on the floor.  We were able to the hand movements but with no legs.

I am glad that the kata part of class went better than the sparring drills.

Sparring drills – 9/29/08 – Monday Karate class

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Sensei Brien gave us a little different class.  We normally work on kihon and kata but tonight he had us working on some sparring drills.

It’s all in the angles…

For this drill, we got a partner.  We both stood in a front stance, we then shifted straight in with reverse punch then shifted out, we then shifted in again but shifted out on the left angle, and then we shifted in again and out on the right angle.  Our parter had to counter the first and second attack with a back leg roundhouse kick and then the third attack with a front leg roundhouse kick based on the direction we shifted out on.

We then did the same move but our partner could add a single or double counter attack.

Keep that hand up and use it…

Next, we stood in a ready stance but with our left hand up in front of our face.  Our partner then shifted in and threw a jodan or chudan punch and we had to shift back and block it.  This was a really cool drill and almost any hand attack that our partners threw was easily blocked or at least redirected away.

Kihon, the same but different – 9/27/08 – Saturday Karate class

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Sensei Plocharczyk had us working on some different but similar kihon drills.

Kihon, the same but different…

The reason I said the same but different is because we have done these moves many times before but not in this order.

The first drill was right leg front snap kick to front, right leg side thrust kick to right corner, step back with right leg, throw a left hand back fist and right hand reverse punch.  Then wash, rinse and repeat, I mean, we did the same but started with the left leg.

Next, we did right leg front snap kick, right leg side thrust kick to corner, step backward with the right leg into front stance with and inward block, then move toward the left corner into a horse stance with and elbow strike and back fist then step into front stance with a reverse punch.  We alternated between left and right foot in front.

One-step sparring…

For this drill, Sensei Plocharczyk had us get a partner and work on one-step sparring but instead of doing the standard block and counter attacks, he had us other movements.  These could be movements from out kata or kihon moves that we normally do not do when doing one-step.  For example, when my partner would throw a front snap kick, I would shift out to the side and catch his leg with my arm and then lift up, like the move in Bassai Dai, and then sweep his stationary leg.  I didn’t complete the movement on my partner since we didn’t want to hurt each other but that movement in particular works just like it looks.

Do your push ups…

During class, Sensei had us do five sets of 10 push ups between our various drills.  At the end of class, Sensei had us do five more sets of 10 push ups but within a few minutes.  We did one set and then he had us rest for maybe 15 seconds and then we did 10 more until we did a total of 50.

It was a really good class.