Training

Today I made sure to complete all the things Sensei required me to cover. Basics were covered, with basic combinations for higher belts. In order to prepare for testing Heian Shodan was practiced, a few times with 50% power and speed and built up to full power, full speed. Directed Hector to practice sanbon kumite for lower belts.

Ula was the only other higher belt. She showed me some of the techniques that were practiced on Tuesday. Given time constraints, we practiced the attacker's side going forward and defender's side going back. It seemed to be a good practice as we were to deliberately hold a shorter stance, stay on the toes and try to "stop on a dime" and move backwards as an attacker and reverse the directions as a defender. We only practiced on of the combinations as I figured that trying to understand the momentum shifting was what I needed to worry about first, i.e. the foot work.

Following that for 15 minutes, I focused on teaching Jion to Ula. She seemed to understand the timing of the first quarter of the kata. She's still memorizing the sequence of techniques. I asked if she still had a video of the kata's and told her to look at those to help remember the sequence.

Another note is the talk of ettiquette. I made sure it was clear not not call Sensei by his first name while training. I gave an example of a similar mistake that I made in high school, where my biology teacher was the freshman basketball coach that I was helping by managing stats for the team. While calling him by his nickname rather than his first name, I had made the same mistake, and made it known that there needs to be a level of respect to seniors and especially to Sensei. I told them that while we look at their technique, we especially look at their ettiquette and attitude when testing them.

Teaching lessons

Monday, training. Sensei was not there, so I focused on teaching. I had everyone warm up with basics:

Oizuki jodan and chudan for lower belts, sanbon-zuki for upper belts.
Each block forward and back. Same for upper belts with gyakuzuki finish.

Kept the pace fast. Had to keep reminding Krishna, one of the white belts, to try to keep his hips level. He would lean forward all the time, and try to put too much emphasis on power when learning a technique. Also, during basics I tried to explain soto-gedan barai, so that when they do maegeri-chudan during sparring, they wouldn't hurt each other. It took me a longer time to explain how to do soto-gedan barai than I thought. It was actually frustrating me greatly that I had to repeat the same fix again and again, throughout basics training. I decided that I had to warn everyone that if they did not keep there hips level and turned during blocking that everyone would have to do push-ups. It wasn't good enough as the white belts were still not paying consistent attention to just the couple of points I told them about, so everyone did pushups, even me.

I wanted to have the white belts practice five-point sparring because testing is soon. The white belts seem to understand the techniques, but I wasn't good at explaining the ettiquette. I continued to be frustrated that I could not explain well enough.

I had the higher belts to ippon kumite and semi-free. I decided that I would need their help in teaching the techniques and procedure to the white belts, so I paired a higher belt with a lower belt. Fortunately, but also unfortunately, we only had three white belts, one yellow belt and two brown belts there.

After the end of training, when everyone was excused, I decided to let out some agression that I've been building up. I was able to make sure that I didn't let out my agression on the lower belts, aside from the pushups and angry face, so I decided to hit the mat that we wrapped up against the wall. It was theraputic to some degree. I need to take this training as a lesson for myself.

Karate Blog : Issue # 0

So this is my very first blog entry. I'll try and write journal entries as I continue to train. I've been training for over three years now, and I'm just starting to understand some things that I've been told since day one :)

I guess the best way is to start writing entries, and pick up the story at one point or another. I didn't go to training today because I've been getting ready for a workshop being held in Denver. I'm a graduate student, so I get to go to those things.

Normally I train Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. So the day after would be the best days to visit, but I have my personal doubts about people even seeing this page.