Cool stuff I learned this week

[aurik]

With the holidays and a "creeping crud" cold, I haven't had the opportunity to train until this week. Of course, at the same time, my manager decided that with a big project coming up, I needed to make a trip to San Jose.

Sooo, I got to train with the Okikukai guys out in San Jose. They are a very friendly bunch and do things slightly differently and stress different aspects of our katas than my sensei does. It was a lot of fun, and I got to work a different set of yakusoku kumite exercises.

All in all it was a good week, and good to get back into the swing of things. This upcoming week will be interesting as well, since my wife will be on travel, so I'll need to bring Zach with me to my adult classes. Our agreement is that if he reads for 30 minutes at the beginning of class, I'll let him play video games for the remainder of class. It's worked out reasonably well so far.

[bushido_man96]

Sometimes it's nice to see a different perspective on things. Getting to train at different schools provides that. It can really open your mind up to some different ideas and approaches, and is a great opportunity.

[Wayofaswede]

Happy to hear about your training and experiences again

[aurik]

It's been a few weeks since I last posted on here, and I've had quite a few "a-ha" moments. This past Monday, we did a lot of work with kicks and I was paired with our CI for bag work. He started us working technique with mawashi-geri, specifically he wanted us to start them by bringing our knee up like a front kick, then quickly turning the hip over and pivoting the supporting foot. The intent of this is to make this look like a front kick so the defender doesn't have as much time to figure out where to block. While I can definitely see the advantage of this, it's going to take me a lot of work to make it feel natural.

He then had us work double mawashi-geri, where we would kick, drop the foot back to the ground for a quick reset, then kick again. Unfortunately, my right knee twinged when I landed too hard on it, so I had to lay off the right kicks for awhile. Which wasn't an entirely bad thing, because my left kicks are in dire need of help. Finally, he had us doing "skip kicks", where you bring the kicking leg up, and do a hop on the supporting leg to get additional distance/penetration. Since I was holding his bag, I had a bit of an eye opening, since I felt a gut punch even through the bag. Well, it's good training for sanchin shime.

Next, we worked on some of the more advanced techniques when blocking kicks. At the white/yellow belt level, we're taught that we should just do a circular block for those kicks. However, since most of the people in the class were dan ranks, he had us work the more advanced version of those blocks. Basically, as the front kick comes in, you step back, use your same-side hand to stop the kick (again, you're stepping back, so there's not much penetration power left), and use your opposite side hand to come up under the ankle and catch the foot. At the same time, you drop your body into a low stance, and then after you have the kick you, step forward into sanchin and complete your circular block, hopefully throwing your opponent off balance.

I immediately saw the applications to this in several of our two-person drills, and started working on it in our practice that week.

Also, this past weekend, Zach and I both tested for our next ranks. At Zach's last test, he was told to really work on his power. Well, he definitely has improved on that in leaps and bounds. At his test, his evaluator gave him kudos on that, and told him he had some serious "mean eyes". His feedback was to look his opponent in the eye and to "tighten up" his circular blocks. He passed, moving on to shichikyu (yellow, 2 stripes).

Since I was the only adult green belt testing, I got to work with our CI on all of my drills. He gave my arms a serious pounding during our kote kitae drills (my left arm is a bit tender), and he stepped things up a few notches on the two person drills. I got a bit ahead of myself on one of them -- I succeeded in blocking his mawashi geri, but when I was circle-blocking it to spin him around, I did not wait until his foot cleared my face before stepping forward and got a smelly foot in the face for my troubles.

Also, during our kicking exercise, he made a point of showing the weakness in my crane block technique -- we're supposed to angle our shin and forearm to guide the kicks downwards, but my forearm wasn't angled quite right, and his foot went right up my forearm to brush my chin... another smelly foot to the face. Those were two of my pieces of feedback at the end.

The last thing we worked on this week was the presentation part of our bunkai. He said that we should start and end each partner demonstration by setting together in our kimae. Since it was pretty new in my mind, I wasn't always remembering to end each demonstration with the kimae, but during the test, our CI told me that during a black belt test, you can use those that pause to catch your breath. Since I have a tendency to be low on stamina, I will definitely keep that in mind.

In the end, we both passed, and we both learned a few things for our future tests. I'll now get to start learning my next kata (seichin). Fortunately I have at least 6 months to work on it before I get tested on it. As always, my wife has pictures of us, so I'll post those once she sends those out

[sensei8]

Congrats to the both of you for passing your Testing Cycle!! Sounds like the two of you are slowly, but surely, growing steadily as one possibly can. Things that are to come, you'll be glad, and appreciative for what the two of you have experienced thus far in your MA journey.

Steady your course, and you'll be very thankful that you both went through all thus far as you slowly earn rank, especially in Brown Belt; where life there is both rewarding, as well as how Brown Belt training tends to take no prisoners whatsoever.

Train hard, and train well....the both of you!!

[aurik]

Congrats to the both of you for passing your Testing Cycle!! Sounds like the two of you are slowly, but surely, growing steadily as one possibly can. Things that are to come, you'll be glad, and appreciative for what the two of you have experienced thus far in your MA journey.

Steady your course, and you'll be very thankful that you both went through all thus far as you slowly earn rank, especially in Brown Belt; where life there is both rewarding, as well as how Brown Belt training tends to take no prisoners whatsoever.

Train hard, and train well....the both of you!!

Thanks for the encouragement, sensei8! I understand (to a point) how things get harder at brown belt. Our brown belt kata, seichin, is considerably more difficult than either kanshiwa or kanshu. Our brown belt requirements also include our dan kumite which has jumping kicks and takedowns, and moreover it is supposed to have an inherent flow to it (unlike our two person drills at yellow/green belt, which is 2-4 strikes followed by a counter.). Likewise, we are required to spar at brown belt (something which I am not all that good at), and he gets to hit us in sanchin testing. Also the testing cycles go from 3 to 6 months. Which probably isn't a bad thing for me, because I really need to focus on my cardio and weight loss if I'm going to survive a shodan test

I really appreciate you guys and your encouragement. It definitely helps a lot!

[bushido_man96]

Keep up the good work, and congrats on your testing promotions! It's great to hear the progression in understanding on how things work!

[sensei8]

I mean, training in Uechi Karate isn't a cake walk at all. I've the most ultimate respect for any Uechi practitioner, no matter their rank because, and this isn't the only reason, the toe training they do sends chills up and down my spine...and no...I'd never want to get hit with their darn big toe ever. My big toe hurts just watching Uechi Karateka do big toe training...I walk with a limp once I've watched them.

[aurik]

On Monday's class, I started trying to learn Seichin, which is our kata required for brown belt ranks (3rd kyu - 1st kyu). This is a considerably more dynamic kata and substantially more difficult than the prior two rank katas we do (kanshiwa for 9th-7th kyu and kanshu for 6th-4th kyu). In our first two rank katas, almost the entire kata is performed in sanchin stance, except for one instance in each kata where we drop to a shiko dachi to perform an elbow strike.

Seichin is considerably more difficult in that there are a couple of instances where we transition from sanchin->shiko Dachi->sanchin in fairly quick succession. There's also a new sequence where we bring the leg up to a crane block while both hands do a pair of circular blocks (in the same direction), and then you bring your toe down to a neko dachi.

I'm just glad our sensei tends to start teaching adult students their new rank katas well before they are tested on them. This one is going to take me quite a while to get right, but that's part of the fun isn't it?

Here's a video of my sensei performing it:

[Wayofaswede]

Glad to hear you find joy in the new challenges and that you keep training