Shotokanplanet.org

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

Hand, not wrist, on your hip – 7/24/08 – Thursday Karate class.

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Moving forward with reverse punch…

After our warm, Sensei Cieplik had us work on moving forward with reverse punch.  Most of us are used to doing moving forward with front punch so this takes a little more mental focus than physical.  He had us do the movement slowly at first, then we did four steps slowly, then faster and then two steps, pause and two more steps with the punch.  We spent a good amount of time working on this movement and after a few it felt ok but no where near as natural as moving forward with front punch.

A revelation for me: Hand, not wrist, on your hip…

Sensei gave us one of the best pieces of advice tonight.  He said “put your (draw) hand on your hip, not your wrist on your hip.”  This allows the shoulder to stay down and elbow to go back farther.  For the longest time, I have put my wrist on my side and not my hand.  This made a huge difference in my posture and it allows me to engage my lats instead of my chest when punching or blocking.  This also allows for a little more extension on the punch.

An exercise for better side thrust kicks…

Sensei had us do a front snap kick and bring it back, then grab behind knee with our hand, pull the knee upward and at the same time put the leg out to the side into a side thrust kick.  Hold for 1-1000 and bring it back to the front again.  Sensei said that this will make your arms really strong if you are not doing your side thrust kicks like this now.

Back stance with five degrees less…

We worked on moving forward and backward in a back stance with knife hand block.  Sensei Cieplik said in order to engage the hips when throwing a kick with the front leg, we should have the back foot facing a small amount to the front not straight ahead.  Instead of having the foot facing straight forward, turn it in about 5 degrees toward the front.  I could feel a huge difference in the front snap kick from the back stance.  I was able to snap the kick straight out in front instead of the weird thing that I was doing when my back foot was pointed straight to the side.  It allows the kick to work with the body instead of against it.

Kata…

We did Heian Shodan.  Sensei wanted us to pay attention to our back stances.  I was so into keeping my hand, not my wrist, on my side, I made a mistake and started doing rising blocks instead of front punches near the end of the kata.  It did feel much different.

Small blocks can be effective movements…

We got a partner and one of us stood with our hands out in front of us.  Our parnter threw a front punch and from the pinkie finger we pivoted our hand into an outward type edge hand, turned our body and moved the punch past us. The movement itself was very small but large enough to move the punch away from my body.

We then did a similar move where we pivot from the thunb, close the hand and do an inward block.  Again, this small movement deflected the punch past us and allowed for a counter movement.

The key to these movements is precise timing and moving to the inside or outside of the punch.  The outward block with the edge hand was very similar to the knife disarms that Sensei Noia has been showing us recently.

Karate on the outside – 7/22/08 – Tuesday Karate class.

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A serious warm up…

Sensei Noia had us do a really hard warm up tonight.  We ran back and forth across the gym at least 10 times.  Next, we did butt kicks, where your run across the gym trying to kick your backside with your feet.  Next, we did low walks both forward and back across the gym.  For good measure, Sensei had us jog across the gym four more times.

Taking our Karate outside…

I am not talking about a metaphor here, Sensei had us go outside to do our Karate on the hill behind the dojo.  We have not done this for sometime and the last time I remember having class outside was maybe two years ago.

We started sprinting up the hill for a fast warm up.  Next, we went down the hill, squatted down and then jumped forward until we got to the top of the hill.

After that we did a front stance at the bottom.  As Sensei counted, we went back up the hill doing the block or punch of our choice.  Moving up the hill was a challange since you had to squeeze with the front leg to pull ourselves up the hill.

The next movement was from a front stance, we did front snap kicks moving up the hill.  This hill is not just a gentle slope, it is a fairly steep climb and trying to balance while kicking is not an easy task.  We then did a similar move where we went back up the hills doing a kick of our choice.  I did both front snap kick and roundhouse kicks for that drill.

We also did pushups with our feet higher than our hands.  Sensei had us do 20 reps and it wasn’t too hard for me.

Next came kata.  We all did Heian Shodan together while trying to keep from falling down the hill.  It was not easy and the down hill movements and back stances were very hard.  Sensei then had us do our own kata.  I did Bassai Dai and it didn’t seem too bad.  I wasn’t able to use full power but I didn’t fall down either.

We finished our outside Karate by doing low walks all the way from the far top of the hill back to the dojo door.  We had to do at least 30 each leg and coming up the steep hill was torture.

Back inside…

Once we got back in the dojo, Sensei Noia had us do our own belt kata.  Since we were on the flat floor again, it should be easy, right?  I could hardly move my legs and the floor felt so sticky for some reason but I did my kata.  I still have some things work out in Bassai Dai.  Except for the last three moves, I can do alomst the whole thing now.

We then got a partner and worked on some one-step sparring.  Instead of the normal punch block, Sensei Noia wanted us to use the movements that we have been working with for the last few weeks.  My partner and I worked on movements from our belt kata, Bassai Dai.  These movements are starting to come easier than before and feel almost automatice at times.  We spent about 15 minutes going back and forth with our attacks and block and counters before class ended.

It was an excelelnt class.

Guest Sensei and some bunkai drills – 7/19/08 – Saturday Karate class.

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Today was an interesting day.  We had Sensei Brien as our guest Sensei today.

Three step sparring with a twist…

Sensei had us partner up.  One of us did the blocking and the other did the attacks.   We started with our partner throwing a jodan front punch.  We then stepped back and did some simple drills with inward, outward and rising block.

After we warmed up Sensei had us do some different blocking movements.  The first movement was stepping back and blocking with a knife hand.  We brought our hand up to our ear and blocked the same way we do in the kata but instead we were in a front stance.

The next movement was similar but we brought our knife hand block around from the outside much like an inward block.  The idea was to redirect our opponents punch away from us.  We turned our hand the opposite way and used to back of it to redirect the punch.

The next movement was a downward palm strike block.  Our opponent threw a chudan front punch and as it was coming toward us, we would do a downward type palm strike and hit their hand out of the way.  It is similar to a downward block but it is more of a direct downward motion instead of a cross body motion.

We spent the entire class working on movements like these and I am surprised how quickly our hour long class went by.