Cool stuff I learned this week

[bushido_man96]

Hehe, the trades. Such fun. I always made it a point to not show any grimaces or winces, no matter how much it hurt!

[ashworth]

Yeah we have started wearing shin and instep pads now, but I think that just encourages students to try and kick harder without fear...

[aurik]

Yeah we have started wearing shin and instep pads now, but I think that just encourages students to try and kick harder without fear...

Advanced students (brown/black belt level) are expected to condition their shins and insteps for this very reason. We would usually do these type of drills at the beginning of every class. Unfortunately with the pandemic, we can't do them right now. Here are a few examples:

The shin bone itself, though, is usually something you don't start conditioning until brown/black belt level.

[ashworth]

Advanced students (brown/black belt level) are expected to condition their shins and insteps for this very reason. We would usually do these type of drills at the beginning of every class. Unfortunately with the pandemic, we can't do them right now. Here are a few examples:

The shin bone itself, though, is usually something you don't start conditioning until brown/black belt level.

We do similar drills but they are mostly for the arms, upper thighs and stomach. Have never really touched on conditioning for the shins. Possibly something to look into.

[bushido_man96]

Those are pretty solid blows. I kind of like that. I would not want to wait until brown belt level to start conditioning like that, though. If you have some to work with, start light and work up.

[sensei8]

Mind over matter.

At the beginning, the pain matters, and the mind thinks you've lost it. Shugyo...Suck it up. We endure now, so when the moment introduces itself, it's of no concern.

[aurik]

Those are pretty solid blows. I kind of like that. I would not want to wait until brown belt level to start conditioning like that, though. If you have some to work with, start light and work up.

Oh, I may have misspoke. We start conditioning like that (at MUCH lower intensities) in the very first classes. At the low to mid-kyu levels, we condition the forearms, the outer calf, and the outer thighs. We are also taught to keep the abs, pecs, lats, and traps tight throughout our sanchin kata -- at green and brown belt levels (and up), our sensei would normally test your shime (focus) by pressing/striking you in these various locations. The expectation is that as you progress, you should be able to tolerate harder and harder blows without injury.

However, it isn't until the brown/black belt levels that we start conditioning the actual shin bones, inner thighs, and inner calves.

At each of our testing cycles (in a normal year), we're expected to demonstrate fundamental kote kitae techniques -- at my test for gokyu (the last test I had under "normal" conditions), I demonstrated with our CI, since there was no one of my size/rank to work with. He was hitting me hard enough that the audience was hearing/wincing.

[bushido_man96]

Ah, ok, that makes much more sense to me. Sorry if I misunderstood.

[aurik]

The past week (and a half) has been a pretty good week for me. Last Tuesday, I got to work with our nidan and a couple other brown belts on Seisan kata (required for shodan). I'll have a year and a half to work on this (and its bunkai) before I'm eligible to test for shodan. The good news is that I've seen this done enough times that it already pretty much makes sense to me. There are only a couple of new sequences in the kata, so I'm not finding it horribly difficult to memorize.

Today we had a much smaller class, so it was just me and our nidan working together for seisan -- I am now able to mostly get through it without too much trouble. I'm not yet ready to try the two jumps due to arthritis in my knees, but I'll try to get there eventually. In any case, he told me that I'm starting to look pretty good considering I've only been working this kata for a week.

Today was actually a much more cerebral class than usual -- our sensei did a lot of talking and we did a lot less than usual working out. One of the things he mentioned to me was what I needed to focus on for nikyu -- seisan kata, sanchin (with shime testing), and either sparring (if we can do that with where we are COVID-wise) or bag combinations. I then asked him what he was actually looking for when he did shime testing in sanchin, and he walked through everything he usually checks, tests. I mean, I've seen him actually do it (and felt it) before, but it was very enlightening to hear him go through the different checks he does, and what he's looking for in each of them.

While he was discussing this, he had our newest student stand in sanchin, and he was demonstrating some of the different checks he does. I hope that the new student can remember a lot of the things that our sensei said, but honestly I think when I was at his level, I wouldn't have had the frame of reference to remember everything. In any case it was not so much an "a-ha" moment, but it was one of those discussions where everything you've seen in sanchin so far gets distilled in one place. For where I am right now, I think it was a very valuable talk.

[bushido_man96]

Those times when instructors really seem to open up and present things to you like that are especially enlightening. Especially with a good instructor.

Since I'm not a Karate stylist, and I've not retained much of what I've learned of the Karate vocabulary, can you please explain to me what "shime" is?