Karate Master: Part 4

Ow...

You miss three training sessions and this is what happens? I'm going to be feeling this in my legs tomorrow. Scratch that, I'll be feeling it mid-day and for the rest of the week. I wouldn't be surprised if I find myself unable to move for a while.

Other than that, training was great. We worked on the...horse stance? I really need to learn the actual names of these stances. I'll get onto that soon.

Most of our training was focused on keeping stability. We paired off and tried to knock each other over/make our partner loose his balance. Actually quite enjoyable.

For the record, the girl that was there last time I was, wasn't there. However, there were two new guys at training. It's enjoyable seeing new people at training.

After that we practiced a new block (old for me, but new for our training schedule), the Gedan Barai (I think, again, I need to memorize these names). I've been noticing that every move, every attack, every block, has to have an element of rotation. Moves that I used to do without the rotation, in other words: wrong, are now improved by a slight twist of the wrist adding the rotation and power to my attacks and blocks, and overall just feeling better.

I've slowly been getting better at closing the distance to attack. Mostly it involves tricking my opponent with false steps and closing in when they're off guard. Some would think this cheating, I think of it as strategic thinking. Still need to work on back away from an attack though.

We haven't learned any new kicks, but I still need to work on the basic one, and wouldn't mind doing some more training with the pads.

For the record, I'm still abysmal at memorizing kata. Then again, the one we did today is normally reserved for brown and black belts in shotokan karate. In shotokai we use it for red belts (one level above white belts). Interesting concept, starting beginners into one of the harder kata. It definitely illustrates the "bird dropping her chicks out of the nest to teach them flying" principle. And that quote was longer than it should be.

Anyway, I'll be back with you next saturday, as long as I manage to get out of bed early enough.