I might have mentioned this before but for the last six or eight months, my wife, son and I assist Sensei Noia on Tuesdays and Fridays and Sensei Gatch and Sensei Plocharczyk on Saturdays with Karate classes. Before Tuesday classes start, I get to the gym a little early so that I can do my kata before I help out. I do all of the kata that I know from Heian Shodan all the way up to Jion. I always do this so that all of the katas are fresh in mind just in case I need to help show the students how to do them.

I was just finishing up Jion and a couple of students walked in a little early and asked me to come over by them. They said that they only saw that last part of my kata and could I do it again. Of course, I said yes and I ended up doing one of the best Jion’s that I felt I have ever done. I just goes to show how much the mental part plays in Karate. I should be able to do a kata like that all the time but for some reason, it has to be my mindset, something holds me back.

I plan on spending the next month or as long as it takes, working on finding out how I can make my mind work like it did during that kata. If I can find the switch or trigger, I want to try and replicate it and turn that switch on during class, at the tournaments and during my exam.
We took the advanced class tonight since my son is now a third kyu and eligible to take it.

Two words to describe it, Excellent Class!!!

This was one of the classes to write home about. So many things about it was just right, I hope I can remember all of it.

We started in a horse stance and ended up doing 250 moves. We got a short break after every 50 moves but it was equal to about eight minutes in a horse stance.

During the class Sensei Noia had us all work on our Japanese. He would say the movements in Japanese and we had to do them.  We went through all of the basic movements for our upcoming exam.  I really need to start using Japanese when typing here so over next week, I am going to start doing so.  We went through all the block punch combinations and kicks.

We finished up the class with kata.  At the very end Sensei Noia told us to do one all out kata, the best that we could even though we were all very tired.  I was able to get through about half of the kata and then I noticed that my power was dropping off.  I was able to keep most of my form but it felt weak.  I do not feel too bad since I really didn’t get winded until the last few minutes of a very hard class.

Sensei Plocharczyk always give a hardcore class and today was no exception.

We started with an intense warmup. It included a lot of basics. We started in a horse stance and did our punches and blocks, then we moved into a front stance and did our block punch combinations. I know that those do not sound like any ouverly hard but we did all of the movements with no rest in between. It was one movement right on to the next for over 10 minutes.

Sensei then gave us a little rest. Time for some pushups. Sensei had us get into the top part of the pushup with our arms fully extended, he then had us go down and hold one inch from the floor for 20 seconds, next we pushed back up to the top and he had us go down half way and hold for another 20 seconds. It was absolute torture and I could only handle three of the four reps. My arms totally gave out on the last rep.

Next, out for kata. Sensei had us go out in groups by rank and do our own rank kata. Sensei told me that I need to watch my toes, the way they are pointing when moving from the back stance to the horse stance in Jion.

It was a great class.

Sensei Noia started class with some sparring drills but I ended up working on some kata and kihon with my wife on the side of the dojo. My ribs are still sore and I do not want to take any chance in having them hurt again over the next five weeks before my exam. It took six weeks for them to fully heal last time and they are still sore from doing certain movements.

After the sparring drills ended, Sensei had us work on some advanced kihon. We worked on some combination block and punch movements and then moved into the more advanced movements.  Not many moves that we haven’t done before but more repetitions than usual.

We spent a lot of time working on our back stance combinations such as, knife hand block, front snap kick and nukite.  We then worked on front stance, inward block, move into straddle leg stance, elbow strike and backfist.  That movement was always very hard for me in the past but for some reason, it was working tonight.

Next came some kicking drills.  We did front snap kick to the front, side thrust kick to the side, back kick the rear, roundhouse kick to the front and reverse punch.  We haven’t spent a lot of time adding the reverse punch at the end of the kicking drills but it makes the movement feel more flowing to me.  Adding the punch just feels natural for some reason.  It also helps me ground my front stance at the end.  I just feels good.

We then did some one-step sparring.  I feel really good about my one-step compared to the past.  I shift out of the way better than ever.  I am not sure what changed but I like it.  I am also able to finish my counter punches much close and with more control than in the past.

We finished up with some kata.  My Jion felt ok but not great.  My legs were really tired after all of the basics and while I gave all the effort that I could, it didn’t feel great.

Overall, it was an excellent class.