Saturday Karate class – 9/29/07 – Disecting Tekki Shodan.

Today was one of the best classes that I have had!

Sensei Noia took all of the 4th Kyu’s and had us work on our kata for the entire class.  He took us through each and every move, telling us not only how to do it but how to make it great.  We started in the first move with our feet together with one hand over the other, then slowly stepped over our right foot with our left, making sure that our pinky toes were touching, we then brought our right leg up and set it down and moved in to a horse stance.  The emphasis here was to make sure that our feel we lined up when we moved in to the horse stance.  Sensei had us stance on a line on the floor all the time we were doing this kata to make sure that we stayed lined up.  I would guess that we spent at least 20 minutes working on our leg movements and keeping our feet lined up.  We also worked on the blocks using our legs from the horse stance making sure that we still were keeping our feet aligned.

After that, Sensei explictly explanced and showed us each hand movement.  He counted each move and told us what to do.  His explaining the kata like that really made it seem simple and I now have a much better understanding of what I am supposed to do.  He also explained  some of the bunkai for the downward block hook punch.

We spent the rest of the class putting it all together.  We did the kata very slowly at first making sure that our feet were in the right places.  We then did the kata a little faster and then a third time at full speed.  Afer that, we started adding more power.  We then finsihed with two more at full speed and power.

The amount of time and detail that Sensei gave us was excellent and I am almost certain that because of this, Tekki Shodan will be my best kata yet.

Sensei Noia did notice that I was a little tense today.  With the gym being so cold last night, my stances were not as low and solid as they were the last few weeks, since I have been seeing my chiropracor, because I was so stiff and sore.

Friday Karate class – 9/28/07 – Kata, kata and some more kata.

We started class with a quick warm up.  The gym was really cold for some reason and I was having a very hard time getting any sweat going even though I was really moving around.

Sensei Noia split us up in to groups.  He took the brown and black belts and Sensei Gatch took the rest of the belts which consisted of mostly 4th and 5th kyu along with one 7th kyu.

We went through our kata and Sensei watched our moves and also told about some of the bunkai for certain moves in each kata.  One question that he asked of me was “what are three applications of the fist move in Heian Shodan?”  My response was, a block, a throw and a strike, which was correct.  He then went through a few more applied to Heian Godoan, Heian Yondan and Heian Nidan.

After that, we finished up with two slow motion kata’s.  He wanted us to take at least two minutes to do our kata.  The first time, I did Tekki Shodan it took me about a minute and a half but the second time, it took me closer to three minutes.  Everyone else around me was screaming because I took so long to do it but that is exactly what Sensei was looking for.  Walking to line up after that was no easy task but I made it.