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

Exam preparation is hard work – 12/1/08 – Monday Karate class

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Sensei Brien spent most of the class working on preparing us for our upcoming rank exam.  This was the last of our make up classes that were two hours long.

Kihon like you mean it…

Sensei had us start out with the usual basics, moving forward and back with front punches, sanbon zuki and blocks and counters.

It got interesting when we started working on our kicking drills.  When we were doing our side thrust kicks, Sensei had do two.  For example, we started in a horse stance, we then stepped across and did not one but two side thrust kicks and then pulled our leg back until Sensei told us to set our foot down.  He made a really good point, if you can do two good kicks in a row, you can certainly always do one good kick.  This really made a lot of sense to me and I hope to incorporate this into my training outside of the dojo.

Kata, any questions?…

After we finished our Kihon, Sensei Brien had us work on our kata.  He had us all do our own kata and then gave us a chance to ask him for advice on our kata.  After his advice, we were able to do the kata again and again trying to incorporate what he shared with us.  My question was how to properly execute fifth and fourth move from the end of Bassai Dai.  It is the low kick blocks.  I was having a hard time transisioning from the moves and Sensei said that I should turn on the my heels which seems to work pretty well for me.

One-step…

I forgot to bring my sparring gear to class so my wife and I ended up working on our one-step sparring together until class ended.

OUCH – 10/18/08 – Saturday Karate class

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Sensei Plocharczyk put us through a serious conditioning class today.

The warm up was a workout in itself…

Sensei had us start with two, back and forth, runs across the gym.  Next, came a shuffle back and forth across the gym.  After that, 100 jumping jacks, 50 crunches and 50 squats.

Kihon…

Sensei Gatch took us through some kihon after our warm up.

We started moving back and forth doing rising block, downward block and reverse punch.  We started in with the rising block and our hips open, we then turned our hips forward and then opened them again for the downward block and then turned them forward again for the reverse punch.

Next came front snap kick to the front and side thrust kick to side.  Then front snap kick to the front, side thrust kick to the side and back kick to the rear.

Kata with some conditioning…

Sensei Plocharczyk had us hold our balance while others did kata.  The idea was for us to hold our  balance bent over at the waist with our arms out to the side and one leg straight our behind us.  Then is was our turn to do kata and the others had to do the balancing.

The next exercise was one group did kata and the other group did speed squats until they finished.  I was able to do 69 squats in the time it took one of our black belts to finish Kanku Dai.

The last exercise of the day…

Sensei Plocharczyk had us hold our balance with one leg up like a front snap kick, we then had to bend over and touch a pad to the floor, raise upright with a front snap kick, then hold our balance and pass the pad across to our partner.  We had to do this this five times on each leg.

It was a tough class but it felt really good.

Do your kata as if it is a real fight – 10/6/08 – Monday Karate class.

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Sensei Brien started us with a little extended warm up.  After the normal movements and static stretches, he had us work on some dynamic movements.

We walked back and forth across the gym swinging one leg up and touching our fingers extended out in front of us.  We then held our hands about chest level and brought our knees up to our palms that were facing down.

Hard and then harder stances…

Next, Sensei Brien had us get into a horse stance (kiba dachi) and we did front punches and sanbon zuki’s.  After that, we got into a shiko dachi and did the same front punches and (triple punches) sanbon zuki’s.  Being in shiko dachi makes kiba dachi feel like a cakewalk.

Intense kihon…

We worked on some of the standard kihon moves with various punches moving forward and back and then combinations.  We also worked on our back stances and knife hand blocks.

  • Front punch moving forward and back, along with Sanbon zuki.
  • Rising block reverse punch, inward block reverse punch.
  • Front snap kick moving forward and back.
  • Roundhouse kick forward, slow and then for multiple counts.
  • Back stance knife hand block, also with front snap kick and nukite.

One of the major points that Sensei Brien made was for us to make sure that our feet keep up with our hands.  In other words, if we did a punch moving forward or back, as our front foot lands, our punch should finish.

Side thrust kicks with a partner…

Next, Sensei had us get a partner.  One of us stood in a horse stance and the other had to do slow side thrust kicks over their hands held about belt level.  side thrust kick with partner in horse stance

Kata…

We then worked on Heian Sandan and Bassai Dai.  Sensei Brien wants us to do our kata with the feeling that we are in a real fight.  He felt that some of us were doing our blocks with little or no power and wants us to make sure that our blocks actually block an attack if they need to do so.