Shotokanplanet.org

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

From the ground up – 5/21/10 – Friday Karate class

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Sensei Brien was giving us a little break from blenders today and had us work on some ground based self defense drills.

Warm ups with stances…

We started class doing some stationary stance training.  From there, we did horse stance with elbow strike into a front stance.  Next came, horse stance with elbow strike, leg up in front, like a slow knee strike, then step down into a front stance with reverse punch.  For the next drill, we did the same as the last drill but we did a front snap kick instead of a knee strike.

Quick hands….

For this drill, you block and front punch and throw as roundhouse punch at the same time.  As your arm blocks the punch like a rising block you turn it into a roundhouse punch to your attacker.

For the next drill, you move your head out of the way of front punch and throw roundhouse punch.  It like bobbing your head to the side and throwing a wide punch as your move.

For the next drill, we kept our hands near the center line of our body and blocked jabs and reverse punches as fast as possible.

Fight from the ground….

Sensei had us each get a partner with one of us on the floor and the other standing.  The one on the floor was to keep the standing person away and the standing person was to trap the person on the floor.  This drill took a huge amount of energy and some really tough legs and knees.  It was fun but my knees were really sore.

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Japanese kihon – 5/18/10 – Tuesday Karate class

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Sensei Noia is still working on our exam preparation.  These classes have been extremely hard and I am sure that it will make a difference for all of us testing this time.

Make those stances perfect….

Sensei had us start by moving across the floor in different stances.  We could choose from front stance, back stance, horse stance, cat stance and cross leg stance with a  different hand technique.

We followed the stance training with Heian Shodan but different.  Instead of doing the stances like normal, stepping forward into a front stance, we would pivot on left foot and and put right foot behind instead of stepping forward.  It was tough wrapping my head around the foot movements at first but after the fifth or sixth kata I started to get it.

After we finished the abnormal Heian Shodan, we did one step sparring.  We did all six attacks with front punch to the head, front punch to the stomach, front snap kick, side thrust kick, roundhouse kick and spinning back kick.

Kata….

Next came slow motion Jion with good stances and form.  Then we did a medium Jion with more power and then full speed with full power.

We did one step sparring again.

Next came slow motion Bassai dai, with good stances and form.  As with Jion we did another at medium speed and then another with full speed and power.

Next, we each did our own kata for exam at full speed and power.

Japanese kihon….

This was a lot of fun.  I often wish we could have all the moves spoken in Japanese.  We did three moves of each of the following.  downward block, rising  block, inward block outward block in front stance.  Back stance with knife hand block and outward with reverse punch.  Standing with straight punch, tate or vertical punch, hammer fist, double punch.  spear hand, single finger, double finger, knuckle punch, middle knuckle punch.  We did different stances including cat stance, cross leg stance, front stance, back stance and horse stance.

Sensei packed a lot of stuff into this class but all of it was excellent.

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Lots of stances – 2/16/10 – Tuesday Karate class

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Sensei Noia had us work on our stances tonight.  Not just some stances, all stances.

Do those stances the correct way or not at all….

After a really hard warm we got right into the stance training.  We started with a hips forward stance and moved forward and backward across the dojo.  Next, we open the hips, blocking stance, and moved forward and back across the dojo.

After that, we added blocks and punches to the stances.  We did a lot of movements, first very slow, then a little faster and finally full speed.

For the next drill, we picked any stance and did blocks and attacks of our choice.  For example, I did a cat stance with double downward block, then a front stance with double outward block, then a front stance with ridge hand and whatever others I could think of that we don’t do too often.

End with some kata…

For our first kata, Sensei had us a kata in mirror image.  I did Heian Yondan.  then we did head kata, where we do the entire kata in our head breathing for each movement but not moving our body.  We ended with an all out 100% kata of our choice and then most of us limped to line up.

I am just joking about the limping part, we crawled.