Training Diary - April 2009

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Tuesday 1st April 6pm to 8pm.

A smaller than usual class for a Tuesday night but I still counted about a dozen students from a little fellow up to yondans.

Steve sensei took the bow and the class. A long warm and stretch. Running, push ups and sit ups - a hundred of each including a hundred on each side for side sit ups. I stretched quite well and nearly made it flat to the floor in side splits.

Once again, Steve sensei was keen to break away from merely preparing for gradings. He likes to challenge us and to remind us that karate is much more than grading.

We did sambon kumite in a linear form. This combines all three sambon kumite. Start off defending sambon one, then continue sambon two (you'll be on the other side) then sambon three. It's a very good exercise.

Half way through I went to help the new adult beginner. It's just her third lesson or so and she doesn't have a gi yet. I took over from Wigger sensei who told me what he had been doing and suggested what I should continue with. We worked on basic punches and blocks. We also had a first look at back stance. She did very well.

While this was happening the class had to perform the sambon in pairs in front of the class.

We finished early and had a celebration for a student's birthday. Steve sensei very generously supplied a cake and we had sparkling wine and a pleasant, sociable time of it.

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Friday 3rd April - Kids Class - 4.45pm to 5.45pm

The kids classes are getting bigger and bigger - I counted thirty kids on the floor.

Suzie sensei took the bow and the class. She often gets some of her higher ranked kids to take the warm up and the stretch. They really respond to the responsibility and it works naturally and seamlessly.

Suzie sensei split the group into three and I took the white and yellow belts through heian shodan and one of preliminary gradings - oi tsuki, age uke, shote uke, soto uke, uchi uke, gedan berai.

Some people might wonder why the seniors still practice heian kata. I have to say I've never heard a higher rank at Tora ever complain about doing any of the heian kata - or anything else for that matter. As for myself, I don't think I could ever get enough practice at any kihon, kata or kumite.

Talk about having you confidence swept out from under you - try teaching heian shodan to a large group of little kids. You might find at any point any number of them doing something different from the others. You really begin to question which is the right way. One of the joys of being a karate student is the simple doing of it without too much intellectualizing, but you get to a point where you have to move beyond this which is one of the main reasons I go to kids class. Teaching this kata to little kids (and to adults I'm sure although you get less opportunity to try this out) moves the process from the joyfully concrete to the anxiously abstract.

After the class one of the parents was kind enough to say I did a good job. I thanked her but said I feel greatly unequal to the task - hopeless, in fact. Steve sensei joined the conversation. He said he learned to teach in front of eighty kids which he did for years and years. That's the reason you're such a great teacher, I said. Despite my mistakes I felt encouraged by kind and positive words. This is one of the things I love the most about Tora.

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Saturday 5th April 3pm to 5.30pm.

A good sized class of two brown belts and the rest black belts. Suzie sensei took the bow and I took a ten minute warm up according to Steve sensei's instructions. Steve sensei joined the class just as I finished the warm up and he took over from there.

Heian oyo to begin with for the second kyu's grading and bassai dai for the third kyu's.

After this we worked through bunkai for heian godan. The possibilities here seemed endless and Steve sensei showed us more and more variations. This part of karate is highly imaginative and creative and makes the formality of the kata leap into focus as an abstraction of an endless series of battles between the karate ka and him or herself. The higher ranks were impressive as they worked through the bunkai, adding and embellishing their own solutions. They really went for it, too, and the clashes were, at times, titanic.

Later, goju shiho dai for the black belts. Steve sensei reminded us that we must be strict about seemingly small details in the kata, like the circular movement of the foot in cat stance. Who are we to change karate?, he asked. He told us to look to the meaning of the kata not just the pattern of it. If we come to understand the kata we will attend to all its details in a meaningful way. This made a lot of sense coming after the bunkai practice we had just done. During that exercise I said to Steve sensei that sometimes the seemingly most odd, inexplicable and ineffectual parts of a kata can yield the most devastating bunkai. This is only revealed when someone with a deep understanding of kata and bunkai, like Steve sensei, demonstrates it to you. It's a revelation, in fact.

After this, jyu ippon kumite. We worked through chudan one to four, alone and then with partners. This was great practice. I partnered Wigger sensei at one stage who showed me how I was moving my arms oddly while executing the kizami tsuki in chudan four. My elbow was coming out and I was punching around in a circular motion. He pointed out that this was because I was not pulling my right hand into hiki te as I was blocking gedan berai. This small inattention to correct technique meant that everything that followed had faults.

Next, gloves and guards on for some sparring. This went well enough until I foot swept another black belt who hit her head on the mats when she fell. It hurt and I felt very bad about it, and continued to feel bad about it for the rest of the day. The black belt apologised to me for failing to break her fall as she had been taught but to me the fault was all mine. I went to leave the floor for my stupidity but Steve sensei called back in. Not long after I ripped my third right hand finger nail off and had to leave the floor anyway.

I can't vouch for anyone else but I don't do karate in order to inflict pain on other people, which seems like a strange contradiction, but it's true. I know it's inevitable sometimes but this incident bothered me. I felt it was unnecessary and I should have done better.

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Wednesday 8th April 6pm to 7.30pm.

I arrived late but the class hadn't started yet. Terry sensei was helping the new sandan member with goju shiho dai. Just four of us tonight - an adult white belt, a brown belt, me and the sandan. Terry sensei took the bow and the class.

Terry sensei stretched us and warmed us up with running, push ups, sit ups and squats - plenty of each. He had us do the push ups in many different ways which worked different muscles in the arms. Terry sensei had interesting and useful things to say about good stretching, the most important of which is to stretch very slowly. Bouncing into the stretch, he said, is useless as your muscles tense and prevent you from stretching further. Stretch slowly and stay relaxed, he said. This is the way to do effective static stretching.

Wednesday nights are technical nights, said Terry sensei. Not so much a tough sweaty work out as a considered practice of common technical faults. Terry sensei is a very good technician and can explain technical issues clearly. This night we concentrated on timing of techniques with stances. To this end we practiced stepping forwards and backwards without bobbing up and down. We worked through some basic punches and soto uke timing them to coincide with entering into a strong and stable stance. Terry sensei told us to remove all unnecessary movements from our actions. He showed us how to arrive into stance and to punch or block with the hips pushed forward and the shoulders square. He demonstrated how weak and ineffective blocks and punches are without this platform to work from.

Terry sensei said you should step forward as if you are about to kick mae geri. This helps bring the back leg through quickly. It's a very useful tip and I found it did help to move things along.

At the end Terry sensei asked to do heian shodan putting these technical ideas into the performance of the kata.

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Monday 13th April 6pm to 7.30pm.

I arrived first and thought the class may have been cancelled for the Easter break but Cameron and Lynda sensei soon arrived. In all eight of us were in the class - an adult white belt, three brown belts and four black belts.

The bow and warm ups. Lots of push ups, sit ups, squats and leg rises mixed up with running.

Basics - simple punching, then two punches then sambon tsuki. In fudo dachi for the black belts. In sambon tsuki the black belts had to move from fudo dachi to zenkutsu dachi and then back to fudo dachi. The black belts who have come to us recently are not as used to doing everything in fudo dachi as we do in Kase ha (it makes me sound as if I'm used to it - in my dreams!). Cameron sensei explained why it is used so much and demonstrated its application in juu ippon where the low fudo dachi combined with good hip movement generates that typical Kase ha confrontational power.

Then kicks. Mae geri kiage and kekomi. Then mawashi. Cameron sensei spent considerable time here working on lifting the knee and the foot in preparation, kicking from the side with the foot coming over and down towards the target and then snapping back. He worked on our foot posture too - toes up, kick with the ball of the foot.

Kata - heian shodan for the white belt, bassai dai for the brown belts and gankaku for the black belts. In bassai dai Cameron sensei reminded us that the zenkutsu dachi at then end (with the gedan uchi uke) is wide while the stances before that with the mountain punches (yama tsuki) are narrow. He also pointed out that a common mistake is to misjudge the angle of the second last kokutsu dachi - you may think it's forty five degrees, he said, but it's often not.

We then moved on to kihon ippon kumite working on the difference between the common way of doing it and the Kase ha way. The Kase ha way employs a typical Kase ha confrontational approach by stepping forward first and preparing for the technique. It is almost an invitation to the attacker to come and try their luck. The Kase ha way of doing kihon ippon kumite provides an easier and more logical transition into juu ippon.

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Tuesday 15th April 6pm to 8pm.

A very big class - two lines right across the dojo for the bow. Steve sensei took the bow, the warm up and the class.

The warm up was vigorous - warm up, sit ups with legs holding onto a pole, push ups, stretches - the whole show.

Into it - Kase ha basics which is one of my favourite training activities. Steve sensei gave us many combinations in both attack and defence. We worked on the defence combinations only this time and we didn't partner up as we usually do with this kind of practice.

Steve sensei concentrated on combinations that require consecutive techniques with the same arm, explaining that often you just don't have time to swap them. Steve sensei will often start with a combination we're all very used to from the grading curriculum such as soto uke, yoko empi, gyaku tsuki, age empi, and then elaborate on it adding different techniques into the combination. Not only do you get the vigorous up down kihon practice, you have to really concentrate and think about it as well.

Steve sensei often says how easy it would be to have us go up and down to a count doing just what the curriculum requires but to his mind this isn't karate. He likes to challenge us, to push us beyond what we're comfortable doing - and I, for one, just love it.

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Friday 17th April 6pm to 8pm.

Steve sensei is in Canberra at Catherine sensei's seminar so Suzie sensei took the class. Suzie sensei told us that Steve sensei had requested grading basics as our next seminar is this coming weekend and those students who are grading need the practice (don't we all?).

Andrew sempai took a warm up and then Suzie sensei took over. First, in front of the mirrors for punching and blocking practice. Mirror basic practice usually follows a set pattern: punching, age uke, soto uke, uchi uke and shoto uke. It occurred to me that what really exhausts me in training is using my legs (it sounds too obvious, doesn't it?) - I felt like I could stand there and do basics in front of the mirror all day, but when I start using those really big muscle groups in my legs I know I'm really up against it. Just waiting in stance for a few minutes is enough to reduce me to a sweaty pile of jelly.

When you start karate the idea of using your hips is, for a long time, pretty much a complete mystery except that your instructors talk about it all the time as the principle way of generating power in techniques. It's one of those things that creep up on you and I realised in front of the mirrors last night that I use my hips more often than not. Like a lot of things, hiki te for example, using your hips is often one of the first aspects of good technique to fall by the wayside when you get tired. Another is snapping your leg back when you kick. When you get tired it's sometimes worthwhile concentrating on one of these things as a way of lifting your performance out of its exhaustion.

I was next to Andrew sempai last night. He is my senior but he is always so well mannered and respectful. He asked me if he could make a suggestion. Please do, I replied. He said when he feels completely spent he will do karate breathing in stance while waiting for the next instruction or count. He said it really helps him. I tried it and it worked for me too. These little helpful hints abound at training if you are alert to them and take them in the spirit they are given.

Suzie sensei moved us to the back of the floor to begin grading basics practice. The class comprised two adult white belts, a green belt junior, a purple belt junior, three adult brown belts and three black belts. While Suzie sensei made some adjustments for the higher ranks we all pretty much did the basic techniques. I have never known a Tora higher rank not to take these very seriously indeed.

Suzie sensei is a very experienced teacher and a karate ka of great ability and technical accomplishment. Like the other Tora instructors she is a stickler for precise technique and nothing escapes her notice. She pointed out to me that my hiki te could be pulled in further and that my wrist was bending downward in hiki te. Pulling my elbow in further in hiki te I was aware of but not the bending wrist - it's amazing how many things you can do wrong that you can be completely ignorant of. I immediately set about to correct this fault and Suzie sensei would tell me when it was improving.

Another thing Suzie sensei noticed was that in shoto uke my arm and hand which are across my belly were too low and bent. I set about to fix this too. I always think that if I'm going to come to training night after night for years on end I should try very hard to actually improve.

We moved on to kicks and worked through them according to the curriculum. By this stage I was soaked in sweat and more or less exhausted. I moved out for a few minutes and then rejoined the class a little refreshed and able to do a bit more.

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Saturday 5th April - Kata and Kumite Class - 3pm to 5.30pm.

As often happens when Steve sensei is away the class sizes fall off a bit. This is a shame as the training given by Steve sensei's assistant instructors is always excellent. Also, Steve sensei has often said how disappointed he is when students decide not to train while he is away. He says that this is not showing good spirit and he expects better of us.

Nonetheless, there were about ten of us here yesterday: a junior purple belt, two brown belts and half a dozen or so black belts, including Terry sensei who took the class.

A short warm up but one with a really quite large number of push ups, sit ups and squats; may a hundred or so of each.

Terry sensei began the class by saying that many of our faults stem from poor stances and inefficient moving and stepping. He set us an exercise to practice these things and it helped. He concentrated on bringing the legs together while stepping, keeping upright, removing extraneous head and arm movements, transferring your weight and bending the leading leg slightly when moving off into a step. I was feeling very tired from this week's training and my legs didn't seem to want to respond, but I did my best and think I derived some benefit despite feeling less than my best.

Terry sensei took us through a lot of kata: heian shodan go, heian nidan go, heian sandan go, bassai dai, teki shodan, teki nidan, teki sandan, hangetsu, goju shiho sho and goju shiho dai. The last of these from teki nidan on I know a little or not at all. I followed along as best I could. At least one aspect of a little experience is that you can follow along to some extent and you don't feel too self conscious about doing so - you know how long it takes to learn these kata, so you adopt the unselfconscious learning style of a child and just copy what the grown ups are doing. This is quite a comforting and liberating thing to do for a while.

Terry sensei's main criticism was that our kata are without focus or power; we are going through the motions in a hurried and ill defined manner - from me on down the lower ranks, that is - the higher ranks have this well and truly under control. Terry sensei pointed out that even though the higher ranks know the kata better they often finish after the lower ranks. What does this tell you, he asked? It tells us that the higher ranks take the time to execute each technique correctly and timed properly with achieving good, strong and stable stances. It also tells us that the higher ranks have the confidence to do the kata well without giving the impression they are in a race or a competition.

Wigger sensei took over to take the kumite part of the class. We worked through the juu ippon required by the brown belts who are going for their first kyu next weekend. These are jodan two and three, chudan two and four, mae geri two and three, kekomi two, mawashi two, ushiro one and two, kizami two and gyaku two.

We worked through these methodically by ourselves. After, the two second kyu brown belts defended while the rest of us lined up and attacked. This gives the defenders lots of practice and experience against a wide range of opponents from fourth dan down.

The class wound up with a sparring exercise in which one person stands with their back against a pillar and defends against arm techniques from the other person. This was good. The hardest part is to avoid settling into a predicable pattern that the defender can anticipate.

After this a little bag work with one student in the middle of the rest of us holding bags. I held a bag but excused myself from taking a turn in the centre. This was probably a little feeble but I didn't want everyone to see how tired I was. Not the best spirit but it's all I had.

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Friday 24th April - Kids Class - 4.45pm to 5.45pm

Another very big class today and we needed two lines for the bow.

Suzie sensei took the bow and the class assisted by Lynda sensei. She warmed the kids up with a lot of running interspersed with sit ups and push ups. Then a short stretch.

The class was divided into three by rank and Marc sempai and I were given the very little ones. We split them in two (three kids each) and alternated activities every ten minutes of so to keep them engaged. They were very good.

I did some mirror work with mine - just simple punches and soto uke. Co ordinating the reaching out in soto uke with alternating hands is very difficult so we practiced this. They made some big improvements with a little repetition and I got them to try and match what I was doing which seemed much more effective than describing the action in words (you do both of course: do it, describe it, do it describe it - working through both the physical skill and the language associated with it).

I'm very big and they are very small so I stand behind them facing the mirrors too but I kneel down so I'm more on their level.

Marc sempai took his kids in some up and down exercises just stepping, punching and soto uke.

After we swapped we put them together and worked on bowing, going into yoi and stepping forward gedan berai. We played things like what's your favourite funny karate word - age uke, said one. Oi tsuki said another. I said my favourite funny karate word is goju shiho dai. We all thought this was hilarious and had a good laugh.

I often get the really little kids to punch me to show what it is they are supposed to be doing. In every instance their technique improves markedly when they actually have to punch me. I took some time to say that when they are practicing they can only hit me NEVER each other. Osu? OSU!

Suzie sensei called yame and we all came together. Those with mouth guards sparred while the rest of us kept time with thirty push ups, thirty sit ups and thirty squats. I did this too and by the end of four repetitions I had quite a work out.