Shotokanplanet.org

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

Roundhouse kicks and combinations – 8/14/08 – Thursday Karate class

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Sensei Wail ran a really good class tonight.

Lots of roundhouse kicks…

We spent a lot of time working on roundhouse kicks.  Sensei had us start with opening our hips up by doing roundhouse kicks from a front stance but in slow motion.  We started by bringing the back leg up first, then pivoting around to the front and throwing the kick.

We then worked on some combinations with roundhouse kick and reverse punch.  Sensei added a little twist and instead of us just stepping down into our front stance after the kick, he had us step into a cat stance first, then push forward into the front stance and throw the reverse punch.  He wanted us to working on our forward motion, pushing our hips forward, instead of just falling into the front stance.  This was a complex movement compared to doing the same type of movement when doing front snap kick combinations.

Hit the pad but use the hips and the back heel…

In order to make us better understand that pushing motion from the hips, Sensei had us partner up and work on hitting the pad from the hips instead of the upper like most of us do.  He had us stand a very small distance from our partner with our hips open and our back leg bent and then straighten the back leg, push off the back heel, close the hips and throw the punch.  My lack of ankle flexibility wasn’t helping me too much but when I was able to push off the back heel my punches were much more powerful and connected.  The look on my wife’s face when I hit the pad was enough to tell me when I did the movement the correct way.

Kata from start to end…

Sensei Wail wanted us to try and apply the hip and heel connection to our kata so we started with Heian Shodan.  We then followed it up with Heian Nidan, Heian Sandan, Hiean Yondan, Heian Godan, Jion and Bassai Dai.  I could certainly feel the connection when I did my strikes the correct way but the percentage of correct moves was pretty low.

Karate Olympics again – 8/12/08 – Tuesday Karate class

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Was it Deja Vu or a bad dream?

Just when I thought it was over, it happened again…

Our class today was a repeat of the Saturday class.  Sensei Gatch had us do the same Karate Olympics that we did on Saturday.  You can read all about it on my previous post https://shotokanplanet.org/?p=322 .

We did the same four events and my results were as follows:

For the push up contest I was only about to muster up fifth place with 54 total push ups after across the two of the three 30 second sets.

For the V-sit event, I came in second place after holding my position for about seven minutes.

In the wall sit, I made it for almost three minutes but still had to do 50 squats since a couple people held out for 10 minutes.

In the sprint, I lost again and by just a nose.  I really need to spend some time working on my sprinting in the future.

Finish with kata…

Instead of doing Heian Shodan today, we did our own belt kata.  My Bassai Dai felt pretty good overall but I was just happy to be able to complete it.

Conditioning at the Karate Olympics – 8/9/08 – Saturday Karate class

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Four events means a lot of hard work…

In honor of the Olympics, Sensei Gatch held our own Karate Olympics.  This was an hour of all out conditioning that put Karate student against Karate student.

Three sets of timed push ups to failure…

We started with push ups.  For the first part of this three part event, Sensei had us do as many push ups and we could for 30 seconds.  I ended up with 34, the most in the group, in the first 30 seconds.  On the second 30 second test, I was able to do 22 push ups, which was the most in my group again.  For the third part of the event, I was only able to do 13 push ups.  One of the other students beat me on the third part by doing 16 push ups but my total of 69 beat his total of 67.  My arms and front deltoids were pretty much useless after the push ups.

V-sit and hold forever…

For the next event we got on to the floor and had to hold our legs up in the v-situp position for as long as possible.  I ended up winning this event by holding the position for longer than anyone else and over five minutes.  My abdominals never gave out buy my hip flexors felt like they were beaten with stick.

Wall sit or the dreaded invisible chair…

For this event we had to sit with our backs against the wall and hold for as long as possible.  Because my hip flexors already spent, I was only able to hold the position for about two minutes and 30 seconds.  I had to 50 squats because of the length of time that I held myself up.

Sprint or go home…

The last event was a good ole fashioned foot race.  Sensei Gatch put some pads as a finish line about three quarters of way across the gym.  We had to run agaist each other and the people who lost had to go to the other side of the gym and do low walks until everyone was done running the races.  I ended up losing to a young girl who is about 26 years younger than me but only by a couple of inches.

Kata…

After all the events we had to do a single kata.  Without much energy left, we all did Heian Shodan and even though I was really tired, it felt really smooth and relaxed.  Maybe I need to tire myself out for the next tournament or exam so that I can be so relaxed for kata?