Shotokanplanet.org

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

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

by Leave a Comment

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.

Bunkai with base, retreat, attack – 7/17/08 – Thursday Karate class.

by Leave a Comment

Relax..

When we started our normal front snap kick warm up, Sensei Cieplik walked past me and said RELAX.  Oddly, I was somewhat uneasy for some reason.  I am not sure what caused me to be tense but Sensei saw it as soon as I threw my first warm up kick.

Kata bunkai with base, retreat and attack..

Sensei Cieplik had us spend a most of the class working on kata bunkai.  The interesting part is that he choose movements where we could apply the base, retreat and attack principles.

When doing Heian Shodan, Sensei had us do , the downward block, blocking a front snap kick, sweep another front snap kick away and hammer fist the collarbone, then step in and punch.

In Heian Nidan we block a jab with the first move of the kata, then do the second move and block a reverse punch and on the third move, we slide in and do a sideways hammerfist but to gedan height.

When doing Heian Sandan, our opponent tries to two hand grad our gi.  We then bring the left hand over thier right arm and our right hand under their left arm, we then do what is similar to the second move from the kata and put our wrist to theirs.  We then pull them a little torward us and turn then over.  The top of our wrists are locked against theirs and their elbows are locked and we twist them over.  This move needs to be done very quickly or our opponent can bend their arm and pull away.

For Jion,  our opponent throws a front punch, we block with an X-block, we hold the person with left arm and throw a strike with right hand.  The idea here is to have their weight on our left hand and have them almost fall toward us and then hit them with the upper cut type movement.  Here is another movement that needs to be done quickly since our opponent isn’t going to stand with their weight on our arm after they punch for too long.

After class, kata tips and explainations…

I had a couple of questions for Sensei Cieplik after class and I am putting them here so that I don’t loose the answers.

In Bassai Dai, the movement where we stand up with both hands overhead is for breaking away froma double hand grab to the shirt or coat.  The next move is a strike to the ribs on both sides and the punch is a short shift with a single right hand punch.  In summary, it is both hands above head, strike ribs, short shift with right hand front punch.

The movement used to be a grab behind both of the opponents knees and a strike to opponents solarplexis with a headbutt.  Noramlly, after that movement, the opponent ends up with a broken neck.

For the movement after the horse stance with head smash, the up down arm movements are bicep strikes.  The idea is that someone is grabbing you and your strike their biceps to break free or make them let go.

This type of explaination really makes the kata feel different or better when I do it.