Karate Master: Part 3

Well, there won't be as many pictures in this one. I'm kinda tired. My legs don't hurt as much anymore, but I do have a blister on my toe that's gotten worse. Last night I was finally able to figure out what I was doing wrong last Saturday during "shuffling" practice. I wasn't taking a proper half step to get extra distance out of my retreat.

There were a few new members in the club, though I think they attended last Thursday, while I was in writing class. One of them is actually a girl. So we now have a grand total of one girl in the club (that I know of).

This week we continued to do more range practice, which is where we train ourselves to understand our and our opponent's range, and when we're safe, and when we can attack. It sounds simple, but it's kinda complicated if you're not used to it. I can avoid attacks pretty well, but I'm not too good at judging range for my own attacks. On the plus side, I am noticing a distinct improvement in my basic skills.

As a sort of aside, while I was practicing with the instructor, he mentioned that we were going to be doing counter attacks, but some of the newer members hadn't progressed quite to that point yet. But since so far I'd been picking up on new/old techniques he said we could try it out quickly. There was some difference between the way we counterattacked in Shotokan, mostly with stepping outside the opponent's leg with our leading foot and throwing a good portion of our weight into the punch.

The katas, which used to give me serious trouble, are starting to come back to me. I'm actually understanding how the techniques are applied now.

I'm not sure how, but it seems like now the small details are starting to make more sense. Perhaps it's because I've seen martial arts applied so much more than I did when I last practiced? It probably helps that while I haven't been practicing martial arts have continued to be a mania of mine. I've actually been researching them more over the past few years than I used to.

Overall, improvement all around, but unfortunately I don't have the energy to think of more manga based martial arts jokes. I hope you don't find this too boring, and I'll try to be more entertaining in my following posts.