7/20/07 – Friday Karate classes.

Very hard classes tonight!

The first class was all kata. We started with a kata warm up. We did Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan, Heian Sandan and Heian Yondan. After that, we worked on Heian Godan and parts of it. Everyone was hunching their shoulders on the first move and after doing it a handful of times, that problem was corrected. For some reason, I felt good doing that kata today. Normally, Heian Godan is not and never has been one of my better kata but today, it felt right. One part that my Sensei told me to fix was just before the kai, I needed to stay low when moving forward just before the kai. I was able to focus on that problem and was able to do it correctly all the other times we did the kata. My hips were really working well, I able to execute the groin strike and block with a different power and accuracy that I have in the past. The move felt really strong and getting my hips around and into a good stance felt almost automatic.

After Heian Godan, we spent the rest of the class working on Tekki Shodan. My horse stance felt low and I was able to hold without tiring as easily as I did in the past. I was having a little problem with my coordination at first but then things started to come together and I was able to actually get some body shock working in some of the moves. We must have done at least 10 if not more Tekki Shodan in a row. Some were slow motion and some were full speed and power.

The next class started with conditioning torture. We spent a lot of time on the warm up, jogging back and forth across the gym caused my right calf to cramp up so I sat down for a while until it went away. The amount of water that I sweat out is unreal but that’s another story.

We then moved into a few minutes of Kihon. We did rising block, downward block, inward block all with reverse punch with no rest in between. It wasn’t a huge amount of repetitions but it was enough to tire the entire class very quickly.

After that ended, we moved on to something new. Our Sensei pulled out the workout bands and had everyone work on front punch and draw hand. We had our partner hold the band and we would do punches. My friend Robert and I were trying to beat each other when doing our repetitions and it made it more interesting and took our minds off of the pain of the movement.

Next, our partner held their hands in an open circle shape, in front of their abdominals and we had to punch, full power and speed without hitting any part of their hands. If we hit their hands, it was three push ups every time we hit them either on the way in or out. I did pretty well and out 30 punches, I only did 12 push ups meaning I only hit my partners hand four times.

We also ended up doing a lot of push ups today. after our arms were spent with all the punches, he would make sure that they were totally toasted and have us do push ups. Luckily, push ups are easy for me since I have done a zillion bench presses in my life but some of the others were begging for mercy.

After that, our Sensei felt that he should keep everyone from walking so he had us do low walks and many other things. After the first couple sets of low walks my calf cramped again and I ended up watching everyone else do them. I guess I need to get back to doing my lunges at the gym again.

Overall class was very hard but really productive for me.

7/17/07 – Tuesday Karate class.

Excellent class.

I was there early to stretch again but for some reason my mind was cloudy. It was hard to get my mind in to class but after a while, it started working again.

We started with kihon. We moved into a horse stance and did front punches, double front punches, rising block, downward blocks, inward blocks and outward blocks. Holding that stance is always a challenge and often painful. We then started doing some different combinations. We stood in a horse stance, moved the left leg forward into a front stance with a downward block and then draw back into a horse stance. We also did something similar where we were in the horse stance, move into a front stance with reverse punch and then back into the horse stance.

We then worked on some back stance work. Moving backward into a back stance we did a knife hand block and then moved forward into a back stance with a knife hand block. The moves weren’t terribly hard but the mental part of moving the correct hand for the block was slowing me down.

After that, we split up for kata. The second, first Kyu and black belts went on one side and the rest below went to the other side. We spent the rest of class working on Jion. That is a very cool kata as far as I am concerned. It just feels right to me for some reason and almost as if it was made for me. The motions and the power really make it feel stronger than the other kata I have done. I do have to do some work on getting my hips to move better but overall it felt good.

I know that I had good workout because I really feel it in my hips but that’s ok with me.