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

Parts of Jion – 9/22/09 – Tuesday Karate class

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Very hard class today.  Sensei Noia not only made the class physically hard, it was mentally hard for me.

Get your pads on….

Sensei Noia gave us an interesting warm up tonight.  After we bowed in, he had us get our pads on and get a partner.  He then had us do about five minutes of free sparring to get the blood flowing.  We started with one partner and then got a different partner.  I have to really work on blocking backfists.  My second partner must have caught me half a dozen times with her backfist.  When I would move into attack, she would just step back and put the backfist about a half inch from my face.

After the free sparring, Sensei had us race our partner back and forth across the gym about six times.

Get your focus mitt…

For this drill, one partner held the focus mitt in front of them with it flat and their palm turned up.  We then stood in front of them with our left hand on their right shoulder and our right hand above our head.  We then did the dropping strike from Jion but instead of stepping forward, we stepped back away from our partner so that we didn’t hit them.  The draw hand was the key to my power.  If I just dropped my arm and down into a horse stance there was power but the pulling the draw hand back made a lot more.  We did the drill with both arms.

Next, we did the same movements but without our partner and moving just like the way they are done in Jion.

The next drill was the double block, downward and upward into the rising elbow strike from Jion.  For the first move, your partner held the focus mitt at about thigh level and we did the double block striking the pad on the downward block.  Next, our partner held the pad higher up and we did the rising elbow strike.  A lot of people call that move a block but I like to think of it as a strike, the way that Sensei Cieplik explained it to me.

The next drill started in a cross leg stance with the x-block.  From there we stepped back and did the double downward block, then stepped forward into the double outward block and then into the over head x-block.  We did these movements both separate and in groups but it seems like we spent a lot of time on cross leg stance.  After doing these moves many times, we added the outward block and stepping forward front punch.  The theme tonight for these moves was speed.  Sensei made us do many moves over again because we were moving too slow.

We finished up with some full kata.  Sensei had us do Jion as he counted, moving like we did in the drills above.  For our last kata, Sensei Noia let us do our own kata but he gave us a choice of doing however we wanted.  This meant we could do it all out, slow speed, fast speed, lots of power, low power, just hands, just legs or however we wanted.  I ended up doing Bassai Dai at a speed as fast as I could with less power.

It was really helpful working on Jion like this and I hope that we have a class like this but with the focus on Bassai Dai soon.

Hold that leg up – 10/14/08 – Tuesday Karate class

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Sensei Noia gave us an interesting class today.  We warmed up by doing 10 suicides across the gym.  I was ready to go home right after those but there was more to come.

Keep that leg up…

Sensei had us get a partner and pair up in the middle of the dojo.  He then had one of us do a side thrust kick while the other partner ran to the other side of the gym and did their own kata up to the first ki-ai.  The part that made it harder is that Sensei made everyone holding their leg up wait until the highest rank finished their section of kata.  We did this with side thrust kick and some stances.

Kata parts…

For the next part of class, Sensei had us do parts of kata.  For example, we did the punch followed by the block from Bassai Dai.  We then added the second punch and block, then the four back stances with knife hand blocks and finally the low side kick with ki-ai and then the back stance with knife hand block.  He had us work up from one or two moves all the way to the entire group of moves over and over again.

We finished class with one, full power and full speed kata for our belt rank.  It was a pretty tough class but I am sure that it is going to help prepare all us for our upcoming rank test.

Tuesday Karate class – 6/3/08 – Parts of kata.

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What an excellent class. Sensei Noia really taught a great class.

I am not sure what was different but every bit of the class felt right. I am not sure if my body was just on today but the moves went together like pieces in a puzzle.

We started with a hard warm up and some stretching and then got right into it.

Sensei had us start in a horse stance. We did the normal drills of punches, double punches, rising blocks, downward block, inward blocks and outward blocks. We then turned sideways and did side snap kicks across and back the dojo.

Next, we were moving forward doing combinations. Sensei was calling out the movements in Japanese. For example, we did moving forward, downward block, front leg roundhouse kick and reverse punch.

After that, Sensei had us work on some kata parts. We started with Jion, He had us do the first movement about five times and then had us do the first, second and kick with sanbon zuki over about five times. Then we did the third movement with the kick and sanbon zuki about five times. All of the movements started with the end of the last movement. Next came the reach, block punch about five times and then we did from that movement all the way to the first kiai. From the first kiai, we did the turn with double block and then into the horse stance with hook punch. We then did the double block, shift into horse stance going both ways 10 times. We then did the move from the horse stance into the downward block.

Next came Bassai Dai. It was really cool to work on that kata. We did the first move about five times, then the first move again, turn into the outward block with reverse outward block. Then from the start again, turn into the outward block, then reverse outward block into the reverse inward block and outward. We spent a some more time doing moves after that all the way to the low knee side kick.

We then went out to do our entire kata. My first Jion felt really good. I was the last one to finish. I took my time and did each move not worrying about anyone else. We then did a second kata and again, I finished last. I did the kata like I felt it should be done. After those, Sensei Noia had us each pick a Heian kata. I normally would have picked Heian Shodan but I wanted to Heian Yondan. It felt excellent. With the exception of the second from the last backstance knife hand block, it had to be one of the best Heian Yondans that I have ever done.

After our last kata, Sensei asked for some to volunteer to stretch out the class since everyone worked so hard. I did and I picked my friend Robert to help out. It felt good to stretch right after class and I might start doing that on my own going forward.

Class has just been better and better lately. I am really starting to relax when I am training and I think it is helping.