Shotokanplanet.org

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

First class with Sensei Brien – 9/8/08 – Monday Karate class

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This was my first class with Sensei Brien and I really enjoyed it.

Lots of Kihon…

We spent the first 30 minutes working on kihon.  We started with the standard horse stance with front punch, then double front punch and sanbon zuki.

Next came stationary front snap kick.  Sensei Brien explained the kick a little different than I have heard before and he said to kick your butt before you kick.  By pulling the lower leg back, it forces you to push your hips and knee forward when kicking.  It also helps make the lower leg whip out.

After that, we did moving forward and backward for 10 reps each with rising, downward and inward block with reverse punch.  We held the front stances for some time after each group of reps.  One really good tip that Sensei gave us was to tighten both the punching hand and draw hand when doing movements punches.  I always tightened my punching hand right before the movement of impact but I never payed much attention to tightening my draw hand too.  It makes that punch feel much stronger just by tightening the draw hand at the right moment.  Give it a try and leave a comment with your opinion if you have a chance.

After a quick water break, we did back stance with knife hand blocks.  We held the back stance for 5 minutes per leg.  My legs were screaming.  A correction that Sensei gave me was to point my draw hand toward the front and not at the angle of my body.  The idea is point my draw hand finger tips at my attacker.

Kata…

After another quick water break, we went to kata.  We started with Heian Shodan.  We did it a couple of times and then moved on to Heian Sandan.  After that came Heian Yondan.  I was pretty happy with my Heian Yondan and Sensei made a comment that my wife and I did it the way that he wanted it done.  In the third move from the last with the head grab and knee strike, you are supposed to stop and hold, then turn and look and then move into the back stance with knife hand block.  It felt good to do something right being in this class for the first time.  Another thing about Heian Yondan, when doing the head grab and knee strike, it is for breaking the ribs of the attacker with the knee strike.

Next came Jion and Sensei made another point.  With the kick and three punches, near the start of the kata, the punches are all chudon.  The first is to the solar plexus and the second and third are abdominal area.

It was a great class and I am sure that it will help fill some gaps and give me another perspective on my Karate training.

Private kata – 9/7/08 – Saturday Karate class.

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My wife and I forgot our sparring gear at home so we got to spend an entire class working on Bassai Dai with Sensei Gatch.

We started class with a rough warm up.  We jogged around the gym, then Sensei Gatch had us do 15 burpies and then 10 push up / sit ups.  Push up / sit ups are where we did a single push up, then turned over on our back and did a single sit up, rinse and repeat.  After the burpies, those were really hard.

Details, details…

We spent close to 45 minutes working on one kata.  Sensei had us do each movement and he corrected us after each one.

I have to following things to work on:

  • More hip rotation on the first few moves with the outward and inward blocks.
  • Strike between the chest and shoulder area before the punch with block and punch with block.
  • Reach to the front before the low side thrust kick and try to bring my knee up to my chest.
  • Get the hips around when changing direction after the front punch into the groin strike.
  • Keep the elbow tucked into my side when doing the double punches near the end of the kata.

It’s a lot of things to work on but all stuff that I am doing now that I wasn’t before.  I really like Bassai Dai for some reason and I am hopeful that this class will help me like it more.

Pure torture – 8/26/08 – Tuesday Karate class

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Sensei Noia reached a new level today.  I cannot believe how hard class was and my legs were already starting to go weak before we finished the warm up.

Suicides are not a good enough description of this warm up…

Sensei had us start with suicides.  Normally we do one or two but today, he had us five.  Near number four, my legs were already starting to show signs of fatigue.  Next, we stood in front of our parnter and as they moved  forward, we moved backward in low walks.  We did this at least two times if not more.

Never ending low walks…

I thought that we were done with the low walks (walking lunges for those of you that might not have heard about these) after the warm up but just when I thought it was safe, Sensei had us do something worse.

We started with more low walks but we added front snap kick, side thrust kick, back kick, and front kick after doing each low walk.   Somewhere in there, I remember doing roundhouse kicks but I cannot remember the details of drill except I know were started in the low position.

Next, Sensei had us work with our partner again but the idea was for us to both do a low walk, the one moving forward would try to hit the others shoulders with their hands and the person moving forward would block.  This sounds like a simple drill but the stress of doing the low walks while trying to strike or block really changed the dynamics.

After those, Sensei had us do low walks again but one partner would kick from the low position and the other would block while moving backward.

We spent close to 40 minutes doing those movements.  My legs felt like jello at that point but we were not done yet.

Kata…

We finsihed up with some kata.  Sensei had us do a slow motion Hiean Shodan but with attention to our stances.  After that, he had us do our own kata in slow motion.  Next came our kata at medium speed and we finished up doing our kata at full speed and power.

I was a very tough class.  It wasn’t as bad as the Saturday before last but it was in the top five.