aurik

I find kata to be an invaluable tool -- one of the biggest benefits to kata is that it can be performed without a partner, and you can get the full benefit of it practicing alone. During the worst parts of the pandemic, we were unable to perform any contact or two-person drills. However, we could still perform kata!

... And now for something completely different. Zach and I have had a blast learning blacksmithing and bladesmithing. My wife tolerates this and appreciates that we have a new shared interest. (She tolerates it but will not allow a propane powered forge in or near the house!). So for Valentine's day this year, she purchased me a "Forged in Fire Round 1 and 2 Challenge" at Kilroy's Workshop in Colorado Springs. This gives you a taste of what it's like to be on the "Forged in Fire" TV show, where you get 3 hours to complete a challenge that involves making some kind of blade using a set of parameters -- it doesn't have to be finished, but it has to be properly hardened before the 3 hours is up. Then for the second round, you get 2 hours to finish the piece. So last Wednesday, I did the challenge -- I made my first-ever kukri (and biggest completed blade yet), and Ron (the shop owner) made a Bowie in the same amount of time. My piece is the best blade I've made yet, but it is no match to what Ron created. The cool thing is -- I get to keep both blades! Here are the finished pieces: http://i.imgur.com/3bx4ui2.jpg I'm signed up to do a quillon dagger class with an ABS master smith this coming summer, and I've currently both got a wakizashi and dagger in-flight. It's a new addiction

I sweat like the dickens during a workout. For me I drink plenty of water, wear an absorbent t-shirt under the gi, and carry a small microfiber towel in the top of my gi. Sweating isn’t a bad thing — it keeps you cool from all the heat you are generating.

Be sure to change things up as well. You can stick with your basic format, but find new ways of teaching the techniques. For example, our CI has a general format that he sticks with, but he will rotate specifics in on a 3 month basis or so. For example one week he may take a 15 minute time slot to do takedowns/throws that are hidden in our 2-person drills. Another week he may do a kick marathon. Another week he may teach self- defense techniques, and so forth. It keeps the classes interesting and exposes you to a deeper understanding of the material.

Coming into this a little late, but I donated what I could. I hope it helps!

I'm now a couple weeks into the Shodan prep cycle. This consists of two "normal" classes per week along with one test-specific class. In the test-specific class, he'll focus on everything that is on the shodan (or advanced dan) test and nothing else. The first week he basically ran us through a mock test minus the sparring, so he could look at everyone and get an idea for what each of us needs to focus on in order to pass. Since there are no other adult male candidates this time around, I'll be parterning up with my CI for the test. Again, this is a good thing and a bad thing. Good: he makes you look really good. Bad: He definitely makes you work for it. At the outset of the class, he told us that the next 3 months will basically be a test. He'll evaluate whether we can make the corrections he wants us to make before we get to the test. If he doesn't think we're going to pass, he won't let us test -- there will be a panel of instructors on the test board, and he is only one vote. He gave us some written homework to prep for the oral section of the exam, and then we got to work. There are a few new things he's asking us (and me) to work on in these classes. First, he wants to see our dan kumite flow more. The drill can be broken up into twelve steps. 5 attack, 5 defense, Receiving a takedown, and delivering a takedown. One thing he mentioned is that when we started learning the drill, we were expected to do one step, stop and reset. Next step, stop and reset, etc. He said that at the dan level, he wants to see one sequence flow into the next which flows into the next. It took a few attempts to get the hang of it, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get the hang of it in fairly short order. The second thing I really need to work on is the seisan bunkai. Most of the bunkai is pretty straightforward and not far off from what we have done previously. However, there are two sequences where you are defending against a sword attack (it could be any two-handed weapon, stick, baseball bat, etc). In the first sequence, when the attacker brings the sword up, you preemptively close the distance, block the elbow and upper arm off to the side, and strike with a front elbow strike to the ribs, followed by a hiraken strike to the face. The second one is the hardest of all -- you start in a low stance (shiko-dachi), and the attacker steps in with a downward angled strike to your front thigh. The defender jumps back out of the way, landing on the right foot, with the left hand and leg protecting the groin and side. As the opponent brings the sword up for a second attack, the defender jumps back to his original position, jamming/blocking attacker's front elbow and deflecting the strike to the side (again, by forcing the attackers arms to the side, not the sword!), then finishing the attacker with an elbow to the floating ribs, an uraken to the upper jaw, and a shoken (one-knuckle) strike to either the armpit or the heart (whichever is available). Both of these defenses are HIGHLY timing-dependent and require anticipation and speed. Fortunately I'm starting to feel pretty good about the first one, and the second one I'm getting there. Lastly, sparring. We've been sparring at each of the prep classes, and my CI has been giving me lots of good feedback. He likes that I'm now able to chain 2-3 attacks together, but he tells me "Yeah, after that third strike I'm about done with defending, if you can follow up one more time, you'll probably get me". The thing is, at that point, I've extended myself about as far as I can. Something to work on. We've also had a nikyu start coming back to train with us. He hasn't been doing much in the way of training for the past year or two, and I recall he was testing for nikyu at the same time I tested for gokyu. So our CI has been asking me to work with him on a number of the two-person drills and our bunkai. Since he is so rusty, I tend to work with him at a much slower pace, but it also lets me work on my teaching skills. I may decide to go the instructor route after I get my 1st degree, but I'll also need to see how much extra time that entails.

Okay, it's been a REALLY long time since I've posted in here. Life has gotten busy in more ways than one. Last November I tested for (and passed) my test for ikkyu. It was a pretty fun test. Our CI usually runs one test a month, but that month he broke it up into two, one for adults (typically 13+) and one for youths. Since I was the only adult brown belt candidate, I of course got to demonstrate with him for my two-person drills and (gasp) sparring. He has reintroduced sparring as one of the requirements, since we've been able to touch each other for 6+ months now. The ikkyu test consists of elements: hojo undo (accessory exercises) randomly in Japanese, kote kitae (arm rubbing/pounding), Sanchin kata with kime testing, dan kumite (two-person prearranged sparring), Seichin kata (generally required for 3rd-1st kyu), Seisan kata (generally required for shodan), and free sparring. The hojo undo, kote kitae, and Sanchin have been part of every test I've done since I started in Uechi-Ryu, so I wasn't seriously worried, but the shime testing is fairly new to me. In Sanchin your evaluator will pull, push, and strike you in various places to ensure you're protecting yourself and you're able to resist being pulled off balance. I felt that I did much better in this round than for nikyu, but there are areas I still feel I need to work on. I did pretty well on Seichin kata, and I felt that the Seisan kata was the best I've done so far. I still need to work on the final sequence, but I have another 6 months to work on that until my next testing. The sparring is what had me the most worried -- it seems the only person I end up sparring with his my CI, and by now he pretty much knows everything I'm going to try to throw at him. Right before that part of the test he told me "It's not MY test. It's YOUR test. I'm here to see what you can do." I felt I did well enough on the sparring to pass, but I still feel that is the weakest part of my karate. Being a larger guy, I'm pretty slow so most of my partners end up jumping in, tagging me, and jumping back out. Granted I know and they know that in a real fight that wouldn't really hurt me much. However it's pretty frustrating. In any case, I did pass my ikkyu test. Our CI's father did all of our feedback and didn't have anything specific except he said we need to work on pacing ourselves in sparring (me in particular), and the sparring part of the test is as much about CV fitness as anything else. So I passed my ikkyu test -- next step is "advanced brown belt" and shodan.

One of the key things that my CI looks for in students to promote to higher kyu ranks and (especially) dan ranks is the ability to receive feedback and quickly incorporate corrections. For students at higher dan ranks (nidan and above), he looks for them to self-correct -- for example when we do group kata, we usually do two repetitions with a count and one at your own pace. For students in the higher dan grades, he expects to see them periodically glance into the mirrors at stopping points to make minor corrections in their own technique. As far as techniques vs time in grade requirements, he has expectations for students at each grade level as well as time-in-grade and (for higher kyu and dan ranks) minimum age requirements. He will adjust his expectations based upon the physical abilities/limitations of his students. However, the key takeaway is that if he gives a student corrections and they won't make the changes, he either won't let them into the next testing cycle, he'll possibly fail them in a test cycle, or (depending on grade they're testing for) he may pass them, but decline to let them into the next test cycle until they fix the issues.

We have this exact defense in our seisan bunkai as well. The short version is you cup your hand into a "koken" (ie, bend your fingers at the first knuckle to 90 degrees), then swing the arm forward enough to get a little space -- you don't need much, then swing the arm backwards like a pendulum, striking the opponent with the koken in the groin. There's a video of it here at about the 2 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2uBCcX3v4I. One of the keys is to not let the opponent get the grab completely in. Once you feel the arms start to go around you, strike hard. Someone isn't going to grab you for kicks -- if they're doing a bear hug from behind they probably mean to hurt you.

We also use the boshiken (thumb weapon). Think of a palm-heel strike with the thumb tucked tightly against the palm, and the thumb is the weapon. This strike is typically done against the neck, throat, or chin. Shinjo sensei demonstrates this at about 0:45 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlJh-7ZnXbE. I've managed to do this once, and it went right through, although my thumb was sore for a week or so afterwards (right at the joint). I don't foresee ever breaking boards using a nukite or sokusen geri. However, I think I'm almost at a point where I can break the 2x2's over the thigh, abs, and forearms (also demonstrated in the video).

Nice to see this active again. In our school, almost all of our two-person drills have a hidden takedown in them, and every so often our CI will have us practice them -- moreso in the advanced classes than in the normal classes. For example, the last sequence in our yakusoku kumite dai ni (required for 9th kyu-7th kyu) ends with the attacker performing a right-left lunge punch combo. The defender performs a left fish-tail block (grabbing the opponent's hand in the process), then a right fish-tail block, then performs a boshiken strike to the opponent's neck/throat/chin (pick a target). Typically, that is the end of the drill, but the follow-on technique involves sliding the right hand to the opponent's left collarbone, pulling the opponent's right hand down (that we had grabbed after the first block), performing a circular sanchin step behind the opponent's right leg, and then pivoting the opponent over your leg (essentially an o-soto-gari), and when he hits the ground, a solid punch to the floating ribs to keep him down. And then our CI said, "here are some of the details of this technique.. And if you screw it up and don't get him to go down on that...", and he demonstrated that you were also in a great position for a floating hip throw (uki-goshi), which ends up with the opponent being in the exact same position where you can do the punch to the floating ribs. Every so often, he'll also bring joint locks and chokes into play -- we don't practice them all the time, but probably once every month or so. It always makes for a fun class.

I'm starting to REALLY appreciate the Tuesday night "Advanced Adult" class, and this past Tuesday is no exception. This class gives me a chance to focus on the new material for ikkyu and shodan. Also, since most of the other instructors (who teach at the satellite schools) are encouraged to attend this class, I get to see material presented differently. In this week's class, we started out with our usual junbi undo / hojo undo / sanchin series. We then broke into groups for kote kitae while pairs of students went to work on kote kitae / ashi kitae -- I am starting to feel that I'm back to where I was on my conditioning pre-pandemic, so that's pretty good. I was working with one of our youngest (full) shodans, and (for most students), I get to encourage them to hit my arms/legs full-power. And after that, I usually work with them on how to generate more power -- usually in the form of dropping their weight when doing a downwards shuto, or converting that shuto into a tettsui-uchi. In this case he laughed and said, "I don't want to hurt my hand on you!". Which was all good. We then did individual Sanchin with our CI's father (kyoshi hachidan), and he would test our focus by trying to break our balance with pulling/pushing striking. I'm starting to get used to this -- which is good, since it will be on my upcoming tests. Next was the eye-opening thing. Our CI did some 1:1 work with me on our dan kumite drills. He mentioned that at where I am, he wants to see me commit to each strike, and wait until I sense my opponent counter before I shift backwards for my block. He also said that this is one of the reasons that once you engage you want to maintain contact with your opponent so you can *feel* them move. This is going to take a lot of mental adjustment to get used to -- in some ways it completely changes your mindset in two-person drills. After working dan kumite with that mindset, he then had me work our other two-person drills using that mindset as well. I think that once I start using that mindset without thinking, my karate will take a big step forward, but getting that point is going to take a lot of focus and practice.

Congratulations!!

Zoom training isn't the best training, but it's better than no training and feedback at all. Our dojo did Zoom training and no-contact training for 6 months. Keep putting in the effort, and you'll find that you'll keep making progress. Some areas, like timing, distancing, and the like, are very difficult to improve on without contact. However, you can always train kata solo and build that muscle memory for when things open back up. Good luck and keep training!

I can't believe it's been over 2 months since I posted here. Classes at the dojo have been running pretty well -- I've been managing to get to at least 2, and usually 3 classes every week. My lower back and knees have been holding up pretty well, and after a few very enlightening discussions with my CI and his father, I'm gaining a much better understanding of Seisan kata and its bunkai. For one thing, for someone of my size with my knee issues, trying to do the jump at the end isn't nearly as important as getting out of the way quickly, and then getting back in quickly. For me, I've found that with my fairly long legs, I can slide my foot just above the floor almost as quickly, and I don't have the shock of the landing. It lets me get into the positions much better and reliably. It may not look as flashy as the big jump that others do, but for me it works. I've also been working on my sparring more - especially since it's a significant requirement for both ikkyu and dan-level promotions. Now that we're sparring more often, I'm starting to learn better what works for me, and what doesn't. I'm learning that for someone like me that is usually much slower than my opponent, I get better results when I give my opponent an opening and then counter -- they can almost always evade before I can close the distance any other way. Also, since we're doing more sparring I have been training with different partners, which is always fun. It's fun to spar with someone who doesn't already have a pretty good idea of what you're going to do already . And as my CI goes, "When you spar with your Sensei, he'll teach you what you already know". Or something like that. The good news is, I'm scheduled to test for ikkyu later this month. I was a little surprised by this, since it's only been 5 months since I tested for nikyu, but this way if I fail this test for whatever reason, I can re-test next month, and still test for shodan next May. Dan-grade tests only happen twice a year, so getting an extra month to test for ikkyu definitely is appreciated. Also last Thursday I tweaked my lower back again. Fortunately it wasn't nearly as bad as it was back in June, but it's been a little tight. It slowed me down a bit on the night it happened and it's been stiffening up more than usual. However, it's definitely a much more manageable injury than previous. I'll try not to be such a stranger here. And i'll keep you guys up to speed on how things are gong. Thanks!

Our dojo teaches 3 different styles, Uechi-Ryu Karate, Aikido, and Matayoshi Kobudo. Our school is affiliated with different organizations for each, and as such has different syllabi and rankings.

For me it's about hip drive and penetration. A snap kick is powered by the knee and quad. The knee comes up, the foot snaps out, and then it retracts, rechambers, and sets back down on the ground. A thrusting kick involves the knee coming up and chambering, then your foot moves parallel to the ground and out to the target as your hips drive forward to help your foot penetrate the target. Did I mention that the preferred target for our sokusen geri is the bladder?

It sounds like you found a really good school there, with instructors who still really enjoy training and teaching after such a long time. I hope your mini-me learns to love karate as much as those instructors do. Enjoy the ride!

I'm a couple years further along that same journey as you are. Good luck and enjoy the ride!

So yesterday at class, I did my first breaks with a wrist block/strike, and also a boshiken. The wrist block was super easy -- make sure you're striking with the bone on top of the wrist, get a good hip snap in there to put your weight behind it, and keep the entire body in a good strong Sanchin stance. When I struck, my wrist went through it like a hot knife through butter. The next break was a boshiken (think palm-heel strike, with the thumb tucked firmly against the palm, the thumb is the weapon), and that went through super easy as well, but I've got some joint soreness from it now. I can only imagine what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of either of those!

Last night was a fun class. After running through our junbi undo, hojo undo, and sanchin, I got to work with one of my favorite partners for koshi kites — he tends to strike at just the right intensity to get the results I want, and we were able to do some of the more advanced techniques. We then did some two-person drills, and our CI’s father gave us plenty of good feedback. Last came board breaking. He is running a breaking seminar this weekend, so we have been doing this in class a bit. Now we didn’t do any of the “easy” breaks — the first break we did was with a wrist block/strike, with the bone at the top of the wrist as the weapon. Our CI gave us a few pointers, mainly to use a strong stance and use a strong hip twist to get things started and use the strength of your Sanchin stance to strike. So a number of the younger/smaller black belts had trouble with the 1” board (equivalent), but most of them got through it after a few tries. When it came my turn, our CI’s younger brother was holding it and I just completely blasted through. He looks at me and says, “that is why I have such a hard time blocking you”. Mind you, he is 6’4”, probably 230-250lbs, and a 5th degree. I then looked at him and whispered, “300 pounds”. He just nodded at that. Later in the class, I did a break of the 1” board with a boshiken strike (palm-heel out, thumb tight and reinforced against the palm, the thumb is the weapon), and completely blasted through that too. This morning my thumb is feeling pretty sore but it’s getting better as I move it around. I think I could probably have done 2 or 3 boards with that wrist strike. I’m glad I did that boshiken, but I think I will not be doing it again anytime soon. It’s good to feel what the strike feels like in the event I ever have to use it. The back is continuing to improve, and my chiropractor is very impressed with my recovery. I’m down to 2 visits per week and after this week it’ll probably be once a week.

Frankly I shed enough water weight during a 1.5 hour workout WITHOUT the sauna suit. Generally by the end of the workout, I think my gi gains about 5 lbs, or so it feels.

We do the same in Uechi-Ryu. As students get more advanced, they are expected to grab their opponent and manipulate the distance by pulling/pushing the opponent to get them in optimal range for each technique. I particularly enjoy some of our kick-based hojo undo techniques -- opponent punches, you step off at a 45-degree angle, do a push block immediately followed by a circular block & grab of the forearm if you can get it. You then pull the opponent towards you while giving him a toe kick to the floating ribs. Brutal, yet satisfying and effective.

So things are starting to get back to normal for me at the dojo. The back is well enough to do most things as long as I don't do anything truly stupid (no falls for now, for example). Tuesday was a very small class. I got to do a fair bit of 1:1 training in sanchin and seisan with our CI's father. He had a lot of subtle insights on things, and I just hope I can remember more than a handful of them. One of the things he gave me pointers on was how certain places in Seisan should be accented and "held" for longer than others -- especially in front of the testing board. So we worked on those segments. He also did quite a bit of trying to destabilize me in Sanchin, by pulling/pushing on the ankles and lower legs, and he made it a point to explain what he was looking for. On Thursday, we focused on two-person drills -- yakusoku kumite 1 & 2, and kyu kumite (required for yellow belt ranks and green belt ranks, respectively). Our CI mentioned that while these drills are required at specific ranks, we continue training them because as we gain new knowledge and techniques, we're supposed to adapt those techniques to the two-person drills and re-interpret the drills appropriate to our rank. For example, after a certain point, we're supposed to do two-handed blocks, etc. We then ended Thursday's class with kata, and I was of course already winded by all of the 2-person drills (which tend to wear me out in a good way). So my kata wasn't as smooth or as powerful as I wanted it to be, but I also find that running kata when your'e exhausted makes things look/feel really great when you're fresh. After class, the back was a bit sore (but not dangerously so), but I was feeling pretty good all things considered.

In Uechi-Ryu, we use small-target striking extensively. The only two kicks "officially" in our style are the shomen (aka sokusen) geri and sokuto geri. At higher levels (dan and above), the shomen geri is expected to use the first three toes as the striking element. Likewise, our kata include many small target strikes, including the nukite (both palm-down and palm-up), shoken (one-knuckle punch), hiraken (leopard-fist punch, which uses the second knuckle of all four fingers as a striking point), boshiken (the thumb is the weapon here), and koken (bend the hands at a 90-degree angle and strike with the four fingers). In every class, we train in Sanchin, and we are expected to keep the forearms and hands tense throughout the entire kata. Our instructors will periodically check the strength of our nukite by pressing/striking his palms against our fingertips to ensure that our hands are sufficiently strong. There are several ways of training for strength in your fingertips -- fingertip push-ups are one good way, another is using heavy clay jars to increase your grip strength/fingertip strength. Then there are also the jars filled with sand (later gravel) to strike your fingertips into. Start slow and know your limits. If you injure yourself while conditioning, you'll set yourself back. The idea is you want to be able to know how much punishment you can take and still be able to heal before your next session. If you give yourself a bone bruise while conditioning, that will take weeks or months to heal. I've seen my CI break 3 one-inch boards with a toe kick. Of course, he's been training and conditioning for 30+ years.