Good kihon makes good Karate – 2/26/10 – Friday Karate class
Sensei Brien, along with Sensei Cieplik, often say good kihon make good Karate. If your want good kata or good kumite, your kihon needs to be good. Sensei has mentioned before that without good kihon, your kata will never be much more than memorized movements much like a dance. He often said that he could teach any good athlete the moves for a kata but they would not be doing Karate because of they do not understand the kihon or basics.
Working toward good kihon….
Sensie had us spend most of the class working on kihon drills. We did blocks and strikes back and forth across the dojo. We started with simple movements such as moving forward with front punch or blocks, then we moved into combination movements with block and punches and then we spent a lot of time working on our kicks. We did front snap kick, side thrust kick, back kick and roundhouse kick but with extra attention to the little details trying to make the movements perfect.
More kicks….
For the next drill, we got a partner and did front snap kick, side thrust kick and back kick. We used our partner as a support and did all three kicks.
We also worked on a roundhouse drill where we kicked each other, trying to keep our heel to our butt until we point our knee at out target and then let the kick fly. The idea was to mask that the kick is coming until it is too late for the opponent to see it.
It was a really tough class with lots of hip and leg work.
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Make kata out of movements – 2/25/10 – Thursday Karate class
Sensei Cieplik had us work on many details today. He also made the point about making our own kata out of groups of kihon movements like we did below.
Clean kihon….
After the warm up, we did front snap kick with front punch but slowly. We did the kick, held out knee up after the kick, balance, then step down with control and then punch.
Next, we worked on stepping forward with reverse punch. We did it moving once, twice, three and four times. Sensei had us work to make it smooth but mine certainly didn’t feel too smooth.
For the next drill we did combinations. Rising, downward and inward block with reverse punch both forward and backward. The key to this was to make sure that our head does not move closer or to the front when moving backward. You don’t want to give your opponent a closer target.
Get a partner….
Sensei had us get partner. For the first drill, our partner stood in front of us with their front hand out. From there we grabbed their front hand, pulled hard, stepped in and punched them to the body. The idea here was to get the feeling of using the pull hand.
Next, we did some pad drills. Our partner held the pad and we worked on “rock on a rope” hammer fist to the pad. The idea was to have our arm act as a rope attached to the shoulder and our hand act as a rock attached to the rope which would allow us to hit the pad with a whipping motion. When using the hips to turn the body and letting the arm and hand whip, it is an extremely powerful movement.
Kata with rock on a rope….
Sensei had us work on Heian Shodan but he had us do the downward blocks with the feeling of the rock on a rope. This made the kata feel much more dynamic and flowing compared to grrrrrr downward block, grrrrrr punch.
Another detail that Sensei gave us was the 3/4 stance in Heian Sandan and Jion. When going from the front stance with spear hand into the horse stance with back fist, Sensei had us move the back leg 180 degrees around from the front stance. From that point, we turned on the heels and end up in a straight line horse stance.
This also applies to the turn from the movement before the first outward block in Jion. This allows the hips to turn extremely fast and strong.
This article was originally posted on www.shotokanplanet.org. Any reproduction on any other site is prohibited and a violation of copyright laws.
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