8/30/07 – Thursday Karate class: Special notes – (wood not stainless steel) and (move on).
Class was tough.
Many basics and a lot of kicks. We did more kicks than usual for some reason. Doing the kicks was good for me since I wanted to see how my hips were working and although I was able to kick higher, they are not spectacular. I know that it’s going to take some time, since I only had one session with the doctor, but I did feel an improvement and my balance is much better for some reason.
We did rear leg, front snap kick with reverse punch followed up by front leg front snap kick with reverse punch and then the same punches but with roundhouse kicks instead. We also did, from a horse stance, side thrust kick and side snap kicks. My horse stance was down lower than before and my butt was tucked under like it should be for the first time that I can remember. Even Sensei Noia made a comment that my stances looked good.
Sensei Cieplik made a comment when I was doing my side thrust kicks. In the dojo, there is railing on the walls and he made the comment that “the wooden railing is good but it is not going to become stainless steel”. The reason that he said it was because he knows that I cannot kick very high, yet, when doing side thrust kicks but even though the wood (my ability to kick at the height I am kicking) is good but don’t try to force it higher (stainless steel level) if it’s not meant to be. The point is, my kick is good when it’s low so he wants me to realize that it’s good enough even if it’s not at head height.
After that we did some more basics and I was particularly interested in doing back stance with knife hand block. Since my hips were working and I was able to tuck my butt under, the stances felt much lower than before to me. I was able to move much faster when going from one move to the next. Even doing that same move but adding the spear hand strike felt much better.
The “move on” comment from Sensei was really interesting and even though has said it before, it stuck this time. He said, to one of my friends in class, that if you are having a hard time doing something, just “move on”. You can always come back to it again but don’t dwell on it if you just can’t do it at that moment in time. There have been many classes where I felt I didn’t understand anything that day or couldn’t do a certain movement when I should have just moved on not dwell on it for the rest of the class or even longer. The point is, don’t dwell on it, you can always come back to it again.
8/28/07 – Tuesday Karate class.
Good class!
We started with some punching drills. We paired up with a partner and did reverse punches to the pads. We then shifted to the right and hit a new partner, first with a right hand reverse punch and then a left hand reverse punch. Next, we did the same drill but with two punches. First we shifted in for a right hand reverse punch, then shift out and back in for a left hand reverse punch.
After that came the kicks! I was able to push my hips a little harder and they seem to be coming along nicely. We did partner drills with focus mitts. My partner would hold one pad low, about waist high and the other pad about chest to should height. We did a bunch of different kicks but the best was roundhouse low pad, high pad and then high pad, low pad. That gave me an idea on how my hips are progressing. We also did some hook kicks but I am going to have to practice those a lot more before I feel good about them.
Hopefully, my hips will continue to improve as time and visits to Dr. Pusateri go on….
8/25/07 – Saturday Karate class.
Since I only took one class on Friday, I wanted to make it up on Saturday.
We spent most of the class working on sparring drills. We started shifting in throwing reverse punches at our partner to get warmed up. After that, we shifted in. threw a jodan reverse punch, shifted out and back in and threw a chudan reverse punch then moved to the right to punch at a different partner.
Next, Sensei had us get in to groups of three. One partner would shift in and punch, one was a target and the other would try to hit the attacker with one of those soft pool pads if we didn’t shift out fast enough. The drill did make us focus on getting out of the way after the attack but it was depending on good timing from the partner with the pool pad.
We finished up in a circle with the Sensei’s attacking us with the pool pads while we blocked.
Having my hips working better really helped me shift backwards faster than before.
8/24/07 – Friday Karate class.
I only took one class since I didn’t want to push my hips too much after my chiropractic session with Dr. Pusateri earlier today.
I did end up doing one of the drills in the earlier class where our partner would hold a pad at belt level, we did a very slow side thrust kick and rested our foot on the pad and then Sensei told us to pull our foot back to the starting position very fast. I was able to retract my leg faster than ever and I didn’t have any problems getting my foot on the pad. Sensei did tell me to take it easy since he knew that the Doc told me not to go ballistic.
In my class we spent a lot of time working on stances. This was great for me since my stances were low and solid. Since my gluteus is working, I was able to lock my back leg when throwing a front punch and I was able to open my hips when when doing my blocks. It was a totally different feeling that I have not had since I started taking Karate.
When then partnered up. Sensei gave us the elastic exercise bands and had our partner place them around our hips while standing behind us. We then got in to a low stance, our partner would hold the bands and we would move forward while staying in our low stances. I was able to lock my back leg and it made my stances so much more solid. There was no bounce at all. We did a lot of repetitions going forward and then we did the same thing moving backward while paying attention to keeping our back foot planted when moving.
I was able to spend a little time with my Sensei after class and he had me do a couple of front stances with some blocks and punches so that he could see my hips working again. I also threw a high side thrust kick while holding on to the wall and even though I was leaning a bit too much, my kick was about chest height and I was able to hold it up.
My first visit to the ISKC chiropractor.
After months, or years, of not being able to throw good side kicks, Sensei Noia suggested that I go see the team chiropractor, Dr. Thomas Pusateri.
I was really nervous about going since I have heard horror stories from others about going to chiropractors but since Sensei Noia said he was good and knowing that all of the champions from our Karate club have gone to him, I felt it was time to go if I really want to improve my kicks and stances. Also, he has been doing this for 28 years and was very reassuring that he knew what he was doing. He has also been taking Karate classes for many years so he knows about how the body should work.
He spent close to two hours evaluating me. He found that my right pectoral and latissimus muscles were not working and that my gluteus muscles were totally turned off. He was able to make some adjustments to my neck that brought the pectoral and latissimus muscles back online. He was also worked on my neck a little more to get my gluteus working again. He then tested the range of motion of my hips. While keeping one leg straight, he moved each leg out to the side. The range of motion was less than 45 degrees and my right leg was the worse of the two. He also have me throw a slow side thrust kick and the height was well below the height of this desk.
After some more work on my neck and digging in to my leg muscles and hip area he was able to get the range of motion on left leg out to 90 degrees and the right leg to about 80 degrees. He feels that I have a bone spur on my right hip from pushing it in class to much and he will have to work on me some more to get it fixed. I was also able to throw my side thrust kick above the edge of his desk by a more than a few inches.
The digging in to my muscles was a horrible pain but in order to fix things, it’s something that I guess I am going to have to get used to for at least a short time. He also gave me some stretching exercises and told me not to go ballistic in class right away.
The real test came during class. After a little warm up, I was able to get down lower in my front stance than ever before. The best part is that, since my gluteus are turned back on, my hips were able to open an close when I would block and punch like they should have been. The other thing is that my side thrust kick was much higher and my balance was better too.
Needless to say, I am more than impressed and am going to visit him again.
If any of you are interested in going to see Dr. Pusateri, his information is:
Applied Chiropractic Arts
1560 West Algonquin Road
Hoffman Estates, Illinois 60192
(847) 934-4144
