aurik

Thank you for the encouragement! I really didn't want to put it this way to Zach, because while he is halfway (rank-wise) to shodan, he still has at least 2-3 more years before he's eligible to test for shodan-sho (junior shodan), and he won't be able to test for full shodan for 5-6 years after that (due to minimum age requirements). I'm going to have to do what I can to keep him motivated as the time between gradings increase. As for me, I'm feeling that in many ways I'm halfway to shodan myself. I've now been training here for about 2 years, and I've probably got another 1.5-2 years before I'm eligible to test for shodan. I've now learned most of the material for shodan, except seisan kata and bunkai. Looking back, I can see/feel how my speed, power, and technique have improved, but unfortunately my CV conditioning has not. I really need to take the next 1.5 years to work on that so that doesn't hold me back. I'm finding you guys to be a big source of encouragement as I post each of my updates. Thank you all

It's been a little while since I've posted in here, so it's definitely time for an update. I'm currently working towards my brown belt, working on two difficult pieces of material. Our seichin kata has a couple of pretty difficult sequences in it that I'm working on the subtleties -- one is a reverse step followed by a complex hooking block (back hand does a small circular block under the chin, front hand does a low sweeping block, and front leg comes up in a crane block, ending in a cat stance). The second one is a back leg circular block, front leg sweeping block, front leg coming up to a crane block ending in a cat stance. I can get those sequences 3 out of 4 times now, but every so often I'll try to mash them together too quickly and my center of gravity will be too high and I'll be unbalanced through the sequence. The second part I'm working on is our dan kumite sequence. This is a more flowing two-person drill than we do for yellow belt or green belt ranks. I've been learning it in individual pieces, but the partner I've been working with (who just earned his 2nd degree) is used to doing it in one flowing drill. The good thing was Tuesday night I was able to run through it with him about 4 times and I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'm getting pretty comfortable with the "attacker" side, partly because I can control the tempo. The "defender" side I'm struggling with because my partner controls the tempo. For example, the attacker side of #1 is "step in with a lunge punch, shuffle step back with a low block, shuffle step back in with another lunge punch, then do a 'hop and change your feet' with a gedan barai uke'". After which I reset my stance and move to the next one. That little pause gives my brain a chance to catch up (and me a chance to change my breath). Here's what our seichin kata looks like: and this is the dan kumite I'm referring to: Now for the REALLY BIG news. Today Zach tested for (and passed) his next rank! Our sensei ran the test during our normal class, but it wasn't a surprise (since he told all the parents ahead of time). Zach looked really good in his hojo undo and kata. He did struggle a bit with the spinning hook kick and spinning back kicks in our kicking drill, but our instructor expects students at that rank to struggle a bit with those. Here are the pics of Zach and his shiny new diploma As always I told him how super proud I am of him!

For me, the hardest part of being in a fight is the fear of getting hit/hurt (yeah, I'm a big guy, but still). One of the things we train in Uechi-Ryu is body conditioning. This has two effects for us -- it hardens the muscles and bones to absorb a hit, but more importantly it desensitizes the nervous system so that when you get hit, you're far less likely to freeze. Am I confident that I could win a fight against 3 knuckleheads? No. But I'm also confident that I won't panic and make them think I'm an easy target.

Wow, this was unexpected. Thanks everyone!

It depends greatly on your target, your style, and your degree of training/conditioning. For example, a closed-fist punch may seem natural, but for a relatively untrained student, it can also lead to various fractures (hand, wrist, etc). A good instructor should teach you the proper ways to use the various strikes to avoid injury (to yourself) and maximize effectiveness in a self-defense situation. Our style preaches specific targets for our various techniques, depending on the weapon you are using and angle you’re attacking from, and our CI can give us a good reason based on anatomy for each one. At the beginning of each class, we practice each of those supplementary exercises, so by the time you are approaching brown belt/shodan, you can target those spots almost instinctively. So again the short version is “it depends, but hopefully your CI is knowledgeable enough to teach you the what’s and whys” I will say that a closed-fist punch from someone who has trained on the makiwara for decades feels like a sledgehammer when it lands. Part of our training involves our CI striking us (in a controlled manner) to the gut with a closed fist while performing Sanchin kata. I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that if he didn’t control it.

These vids are a bit dated, but Andre Tippett (All-Pro linebacker with the New England Patriots, and 6th dan Uechi-Ryu) is a big fan of the front leg sweep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5OH8uSt_x4. Nothing fancy but it works! I generally open with a mawashi-geri to the side, but once sparring starts back up again, I need to work on the front leg sweep.

Welcome to the forums, MAD Mike!

Our school is still operating with restrictions: - Our CI has set 6x6 squares on the dojo floor, with 6 feet between square boundaries. Our current procedures are that you wear your mask into the school and to your square, and then you can remove the mask once you get to your square. - We generally cannot do contact drills with a couple of exceptions. Members of the same household can do contact drills with each other. Also, we recently had a trio of black belts go through a testing cycle (including the 3 month intensive prep session). They were permitted to do contact drills among each other after signing "hold harmless" waivers. Our school recently got some good news though -- it looks like with the problems businesses are having right now, a nearby fitness studio is looking for someone to take over their lease. Our CI was able to negotiate a lease on the space (roughly twice what we currently have) for about the same rate he's paying now. It looks like we'll be moving into the new space sometime in October or so.

Tonight's workout: Uechi-Cardio: Warmups Basics (blocks, punches, kicks, etc) Hojo undo Sanchin x3 Bag work, working 2 and 3 punch combinations Then to end it all off, start with sanchin and do every kata you know nonstop. If our Sensei is still going, repeat. I made it through two full iterations of sanchin/kanshiwa/kanshu/seichin without stopping more than a couple of seconds after each to reposition. That was a great workout, and I'll need to remember that last part for at-home work.

Things have been settling into something resembling a "new normal" over the past month or two. Zach attends a Tuesday youth class, I attend a Tuesday adult class, and we attend a Saturday class together. Since Zach and I live in the same household, we can actually touch each other during 2-person drills. Since I'm now supposed to be learning the new "Dan kumite" for sankyu through shodan, it's really helpful for me to work with Zach, even if he doesn't have the same power, speed, or size as an adult. Since Zach is going to be at a birthday party (for the neighbor twins -- one of whom has been in his class for each of the past 3 years, alternating on and off) tomorrow, our Sensei asked me if we'd like to come to tonight's advanced class. In this class, we were the lowest ranked students there -- there was a sankyu, an ikkyu (starting on his test prep cycle), and 4 shodan-sho's (junior 1st degree). As part of the testing prep cycle (some will be testing in December, I think), our CI starts drilling the candidates on what will be on the test. For example, all of the supplementary exercises were done at random and in Japanese (only). During the hojo undo and sanchin, he made it a point to pick on the candidates' basics, and I made lots of mental notes on where our Sensei was offering corrections. For example, our style is considered a half-hard half-soft style, and one of our fundamental techniques is the circular block (sometimes called wa-uke). He talked to us how it's training us to block all the different "sections" of the body, and while in a kata, the wa-uke is done in a full (or 3/4) circle, in practice you'll tend to execute just the segment you need. He then showed us several examples that on the surface looked like very different blocks, but then showed us how they're all just sections of the wa-uke. Next, he asked the candidate where the wa-uke should be hard and where it should be soft -- the candidate couldn't answer, but I guessed (correctly) that it should be at the end, where you're making contact with your opponent and then grabbing and pulling him. He then showed how you can use sanchin stance along with the grab to effectively control/neutralize an opponent, while a weak or off-balance grab can potentially leave you more susceptible than your opponent. I've had this described to me before while warming up for a test by one of the other instructors (around hachikyu/shichikyu), but today hearing that again really sunk in. After class, we had a nice swim at our HOA pool (it's open with restrictions -- you have to reserve a slot in advance, etc), and since the swim was at the end of the day the lifeguard started setting up the lane ropes for the next morning's swim. Zach made me super proud by volunteering to help the lifeguard set up the lane ropes by swimming them across the pool. He struggled a bit, but he didn't give up! Tonight, when we went out for dinner, I asked Zach if he was paying attention to what our Sensei was telling the black belt candidates. He remembered a little bit of it, but not all of it. I then told him that when he hears our Sensei giving corrections to another student, especially one more advanced than you, that you should pay attention and see if that's something you can apply to your own karate. I told Zach that Sensei was correcting the candidates' basics, and he should try to remember what Sensei was telling the other students. I told him this was primarily because if you can make those corrections now and be aware of those things now, then you might not develop bad habits that need to be corrected when you're getting ready to test for black belt. He seemed to understand that, and I'm hoping that he can start paying better attention when our Sensei talks about these things. Over the last few weeks he's grown quite a bit mentally and emotionally, so I'm hoping this will sink in with him.

In WKF rules, throws are legal as long as you follow them up with a legal striking technique. In fact, if you do succeed in sweeping/throwing your opponent to the ground and scoring on them, it's worth 3 points, the same as a head-level kick. Of course, if you throw an opponent and injure him in the process, you will most likely be penalized.

Of course if you really want to hurt someone with a front kick, kick with the toe . Now if you haven't conditioned your toes for this, you'll probably end up with a broken toe...

As others have said, this is highly dependent upon the style, the organization, and the school. I've belonged to three different Okinawan/Japanese schools so far, and they've each had three different conventions for addressing black belt ranks: In my first school, 1st-4th degree black belts wore plain black belts, 5th-8th degrees wore red/white belts, and 9th/10th degrees wore red belts. (We had one 10th degree visit for a seminar once). We referred to the 1st-4th degrees by "sensei ", the 5th-8th degrees by "shihan ", and the 10th degree was our head of style, who we called "soke". In my second school, all black belt ranks wore a plain black belt except for formal occasions (test boards, seminars, etc), when the masters would wear red/white or red belts based upon rank. We referred to our CI as simply "Sensei", and all other black belts were "Mister ". In my current school (uechi ryu), 1st-5th degree black belts were a plain black belt, 6th degrees wear a belt with one gold stripe on each side, 7th/8th degrees wear two gold stripes, and 9th/10th degrees wear three stripes. Our CI is referred to as "Sensei", while we call the other black belts by their given names. To a certain degree things are informal, but we're always expect to show respect to everyone in the dojo, regardless of rank. Periodically we'll have high ranked (9th/10th degree) visitors, and we'll refer to them as "Master" so and so, or just "Sensei". As a general rule, if you go into a school and act in a respectful manner everyone there, especially those senior to you and the black belts, then you shouldn't have any issues, and you'll pick up on their conventions soon enough.

In Uechi Ryu, two of our katas have bunkai that were formalized by Kanei Uechi (the son of the founder, Kanbun Uechi). These two bunkai are pretty much universal across Uechi-Ryu organizations. These bunkai are for kanshiwa (the first rank kata we learn) and seisan (required for shodan). Our bunkai is done somewhat different from other styles' bunkai (or at least those I've seen). Our bunkai is a pretty formal demonstration. The defender will demonstrate a given technique as demonstrated in the kata, then he will show its application, and then he will demonstrate the technique in the kata again. In addition to the formal bunkai, our CI enjoys periodically working with us on some of the techniques from our katas. All of our hojo undo (accessory exercises) are taken directly from kata, and from time to time we'll practice using those exercises on an attacker. There are also a number of throws implicit in our katas, and from time to time he has us work those with a partner as well. Unfortunately with the whole COVID situation, we really can't do partner work except in certain circumstances (ie, if you're living in the same household, or we have two shodans preparing for their nidan test who are practicing regularly with each other).

Hello Joe, and welcome to the forum! Where in Texas are you, and what are you doing your graduate work in?

I agree there is certainly a lot of room for self-expression in karate. In our dojo, our CI generally has at least three variations of a kata. The first version is the super-strong version where you very clearly enunciate each of your techniques. The second version is the "kung fu-ey" way where you try to get one technique to flow straight into one another. The third variant is a combination of the two, where you find your own expression, incorporating parts of the super-strong version and kung fu-ey version. For example, if you go on youtube and watch several different advanced practitioners perform the same kata, you'll see different interpretations in speed, power, and flow. I'm just now getting to this point in my training - as I'm learning Seichin (required for 3rd kyu), as I start to show proficiency with some of the sequences he says "Okay, now that you are understanding the super-strong version, why don't you try this version (shows me the kung fu-ey version). I've tried doing some of the more flowing versions of my katas, but I have a lot more training ahead of me before I get proficient with those.

Today was a very good day. Since our CI has opened the dojo to larger classes (up to 8 students), he's been permitting students to come twice a week. So I've been trying to do at least one (sometimes two) virtual classes in addition to two in-person classes. Also, this week our HOA finally opened up the pool for lap swim. It's limited to 5 people at a time, and you need to sign up in advance, but it was really good to get into a pool and swim some laps. I pretty much grew up on a swim team, so swimming laps is one of my favorite exercises other than the martial arts. When we all showed up at class today, it was just me, our sensei, and one of my fellow adults who I usually am partnered with (he's about my size), and his two kids (the older one is ~14 and the younger is 8 or so). There were two younger (18'ish) black belts who were supposed to come, but our sensei thinks they were instead planning on going to the afternoon black belt workout in the park. Since he's now able to do in-person classes, he's started testing some of the students. However, I haven't yet been in a class where he's been doing any of the tests, and he hasn't announced them in advance. Today we started with a slightly modiified junbi undo, followed by hojo undo, several of them picked out at random. I was feeling pretty strong today and things were feeling pretty crisp on my techniques. We then moved straight into sanchin kata. My technique felt strong and pretty accurate, and my endurance was holding up pretty well. However, instead of doing the second and third times through Sanchin, he had us do our basic kicks. Following this, he walked the other 3 students through Kanshu kata (required for green belt), and I focused on my technique while we went through it. He then walked us through Kanshu another 2 times for the benefit of the other 3 students, and he said he'd work them through it again. He then asked them to work on that while he asked me to do Kanshu on my own at my own count. He'd been giving me little pointers over the last few months and I tried to put them all into play. I felt REALLY good about that kata -- I think it's one of the best I've done so far. When I finished, he had one correction for me, and it's more a matter of his preferred interpretation. Towards the end of the kata, we do a 90-degree pivot south, step forward followed by a double hiraken-tsuki to the opponent's eyes, followed by a 180-degree pivot north. In my kata I did the pivot-step-strike, pause, turn around. What he wanted me to do was pivot-step, pause/set, then strike and turn with no pause. At this point I'm feeling really good about that kata, because he's now giving me interpretation corrections instead of basics or technique corrections. He then asked me to do Seichin (kata for brown belt). I'm still very much learning this kata, but it's improved quite a bit in the past couple of weeks. I managed to get through the whole kata without any major errors, and he didn't give me any corrections for that. I found that.. interesting. He almost always gives some kind of correction -- since this is a kata that's technically above my grade level, maybe he just wants to see me get the basics of it down first. He then watched the other students do Kanshiwa bunkai (since they are family, they can do 2-person drills). After that, he asked us all to do Kanshiwa. I tried to pace myself on this and focused on improving my technique. After we all did Kanshiwa, he asked us to go through the offensive side of our kicking drill. He asked the two youth students to announce the techniques, and I followed along with what I felt was one of my better performances. This happens to be one of those drills where it's a lot easier to do it with a partner, since at certain points of the drill, the partner's block will help set you up for the next technique (especially true for the two spin kicks in the drill). After the kicking drill, he lined us up to bow out. After we did our closing bows, he announced promotions for all of us -- 4th kyu for me, and 7th kyu for the other 3 students. It was a very nice surprise, and I felt that today I'd put in one of my best performances of those techniques so far. Here are some pics taken by the other adult student: https://i.imgur.com/azz9c0e.jpg https://i.imgur.com/RBbymEG.jpg When I got home, I shared the news with the Mrs and Zach. Zach was understandably disappointed because he hasn't yet been tested. A part of me knows that it's partly due to his age -- since he's not eligible to test for shodan-sho (junior black belt) until he is 11 or 12, our instructor is trying to space things out a little so he doesn't have a really long wait once he gets to the brown belt ranks. The other issue is that honestly he doesn't always try his best. There are times when our sensei has to remind him to get his kicks up, especially if he's not working with an opponent. I encouraged him as best as I could, and he seemed to cheer up a bit when I told him that I'm always willing to work with him on whatever he wants to. After that, we went to the local archery range and shot our bows for an hour and a half or so. I'm shooting a 60lb compound, and we've got him a 15lb recurve. Since the range was doing a father's day promotion, there were a LOT of brand new people there, so we could only shoot at 10 yards. I discovered on about my 3rd or 4th set of arrows that I really shouldn't be shooting at 10 yards anymore, as two different times I heard the *smack* of two arrows hitting each other, instead of the satisfying "thump" of arrows sinking into the paper and target. At least I didn't destroy any arrows in the process -- good arrows are not cheap ($10-15 each). Zach is definitely getting better with his bow as well, at 10 yards almost all of his arrows were in the blue, with at least half in the red. Once that other family left, we moved back to the 20 yard line, and I was still able to keep most of my arrows in the red (Zach wasn't doing quite that well, but most of his were still on the paper). After awhile, my left rotator cuff started bothering me, so I sat and watched Zach every other round. On the way out of the range, I showed my arrow with the damaged nock to the lady who was running the place. She told me that I really needed to replace that nock, or it would give out at the worst possible moment. At least it's only a $1 repair, and she can have it done tomorrow. All in all it was a REALLY good day.

In our school, every kata has a formal bunkai, except for the first (sanchin) and the last (sanseiryu). There is no formal bubkai for sanchin, because it is our foundation kata. Everything we learn is rooted in Sanchin. We do not have a formal bunkai for Sanseiryu because by the time a student is learning sanseiryu (3rd dan) they should be able to see lots of applications for each sequence. In addition to the formal bunkai, our CI periodically takes part of a class to teach self-defenses derived from the katas. He tends to rotate through these every couple of months, and each time these come up, i get new insights to both the kata and applications.

In Uechi-Ryu, we have a mantra, “Everything is rooted in Sanchin.”

So it's been 2 months since I last posted in here. My wife and I are both very fortunate compared to many others. I got laid off from my previous job at the end of February, but I was able to find a new position and started in mid-April. I work from home full-time, and my wife has to (gets to) go into the office twice a week, since there is a lot of her job that she cannot do from home. I've been continuing to train, trying to find the time to train on my own with my son at home all day long is pretty hard though. I have been doing the Zoom workouts our sensei has set up, and about 3-4 weeks ago, he started doing "personal training" sessions -- at first it was just one family group at a time, and now it is up to 5 students at a time. He has partitioned the dojo floor off with painter's tape to keep each student in their own area. He's also moving training to the lawn outside somewhat to reduce the risks and allow students to spread out more. The funny thing is, in the 6 weeks we've been training like this, the sessions have either been just Sensei, Zach, and me or just Sensei and me. I'm finding these 1:1 sessions and 1:2 sessions very valuable in that he's starting to teach me some of the subtleties in the kata that he generally reserves for advanced students (brown/black belts). While my endurance has most definitely suffered during these COVID times, my understandings of the techniques have definitely improved. For example, in our first kata, Kanshiwa, the closing technique is originally taught as "shuffle step forward while doing a left circle block, and a right one-knuckle strike". Last Saturday he told me, "Weelll, that technique is more of a downward pressing block." He demonstrated it for me a few times, and mentioned that same technique is in Sanseiryu (taught at 3rd dan), and somewhere around brown/black belt he expects students to transition to the new technique. Likewise, our Kanshu and Seichin katas have a sequence that at first appears the same on the surface, but are subtly different and have substantially different applications. The version in Kanshu can be interpreted as grabbing a guy's lapels, pulling him in towards you, then snapping a pair of leopard-fist strikes to his eyes. The version in Seichin is interpreted as a guy's reaching to grab YOUR lapels, and you do a downwards scooping block to bring him towards you, then snap the double leopard fists at his eyes. One thing that he mentioned I should start working on is our principle of "Everything returns to Sanchin". In other words, I need to focus on whenever I do a technique, my hands and elbows should return to a Sanchin posture, whether that is open-hand or closed hand. Likewise, when he had me doing our hojo undo (technique exercises, aka "kihons"), he noticed that sometimes when I was doing a left-hand technique, my right hand would droop a bit. He mentioned that if I worked on holding my hands "just so", tilted out, fowards, and down a bit, that would effectively lock them into place so they wouldn't droop. Also, holding my hands that way would work my forearms and strengthen my grip quite a bit. These are all little things, but I think I'm starting to get to the place where these little things will make a big difference in my Karate. Until next time! Thank you all for the encouragement!

Welcome, Gary!

In Uechi-Ryu, there is a saying, "Everything goes back to Sanchin". Sanchin is the very first kata we learn. Almost every class we do starts with 3 things: junbi undo (warm-up exercises), hojo undo (accessory/technique exercises), and sanchin kata. We typically practice sanchin three times in each class, with the CI walking through and evaluating people's stances and and sometimes pushing/pulling/striking them to test them. Our practice of Sanchin is also significantly different than the Goju-Ryu version. All strikes in Sanchin are spear-finger strikes, and our strikes are mostly soft. Your whole body will be tense as you chamber, your arm loosens up for a fast strike, and then towards the end of the strike, you tense the entire arm again. One other hallmark of Uechi-Ryu is the "ssst" breathing. During Sanchin, we are taught to keep the entire body tense throughout the kata. For each step, we inhale into the gut as we chamber, we hold our breath/tension as we strike, and then after the strike/reset, we exhale under tension with a "ssst". It's supposed to be a relatively shallow breathing technique. Why do we do it? According to my CI, we do it so that if we ever get into a real fight, we can absorb hits by an opponent in the commonly hit areas -- forearms, lats, pecs, abs, quads, and shins. (Keep in mind that we also train kote kitae, or "forearm forging", which strengthens the muscles and bones in the forearms and legs).

In Uechi-Ryu, we only have 8 kata (9 in some organizations) in our entire system - there are the original 3 katas from Pangai-Noon (sanchin, seisan, and sanseiryu) and 5 additional "bridging" katas which were added later. We have sanchin, 3 kyu level katas, and 4 dan level katas. Each kyu kata is required for 3 kyu grades -- for example, Kanshiwa is required for 9th kyu through 7th kyu. At 9th kyu, the student is expected to show basic memorization of the kata. At 8th kyu, the student should show memorization + appropriate power in the techniques. At 7th kyu, the student is expected to show memorization, power, and techinique/timing. In our school, adults are generally taught their next kata 2 kyu grades before they will be tested on it. So a student will be taught Kanshu (first tested at 6th kyu) after they reach 8th kyu, and the student will be working both kanshiwa and kanshu during that time. We practice Sanchin 3 times at the beginning of almost every class. In some classes, we will have time to work on kata individually, either the kata itself or its associated bunkai. Also at the end of most classes, we will run the gamut of kata, starting at kanshiwa followed by kanshu, seichin (required for 3rd-1st kyu), and seisan. If there is sufficient time (and students of appropriate rank), they will run the advanced black belt katas (seiryu, kanchin, and sanseiryu). So that being said, my favorite katas are the ones I currently know: Sanchin Kanshiwa Kanshu Daini Seisan (a variant of Kanshu with a cool jumping sequence) Seichin With the current COVID-19 and teleconference lesson situation, our CI has been giving us teasers of the advanced black belt katas (seiryu and kanchin). I'd like to think I'll be able to learn the entire kata during this time, but I seriously doubt that

Also with all the time spent indoors, I was able to complete a little project I've been talking about for a bit... a belt display rack for Zach. I also included a shelf on top to display any trophies, and there's a v-groove on the top to display a rank certificate as well. https://i.imgur.com/JCOk5jL.jpg

This isn't the same "weighted" kata you may be thinking of. It's more like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIzVFj7rOkM. I'm doing it to focus on the "tightness" of my sanchin, working my core strength, and strength in the shoulder girdle. It's pretty brutal doing it with a 44lb kettlebell in each hand.