I did a 1/2 hour private that mainly centered around getting additional pointers on my five higher level katas. The regular class started right after the private lesson.
After I directed the class warm-ups, the Sensei had the group do some basic drills, such as: 8-point blocking, 10-point blocking, 1/2 mooning forward/backward with punches, doing a kick before implementing one of the 10-point blocks.
After that, we partnered up to do our top 10 kempos all left handed. I think I have done them once or twice before and didn’t do them too well. Need to practice them more. The class then wrapped up by doing 20 kicks to a hand pad. I did 20 of right and left hook kick, crescent kick and then a mish-mash of hook, crescent and roundhouse kicks.
Free Denver Area Karate Lessons
After the warm-up exercises, tonight’s karate defense training class started off by partnering up to do back and forth stabbing knife blocking/evasion techniques. We did them both right and left handed. That was the bulk of tonight’s lessons. We covered a lot but not much to write about.
Tonight at 6:30pm I did a 1/2 hour private reviewing some DM’s and a few kata’s. From 7p to 8p, it was covering some basic techniques starting off with some line drills such as a right front ball, right back fist, right round house and finishing with a spinning reverse hook kick. I tried a few butterfly kicks instead of the hook kick. Did it OK. Then we partnered up to some back and forth kick/back fist/blocking with of the exercises getting progressively more advanced. Sensei asked me if I can stay after class to train with two other black belts who are visiting so they can be evaluated for a possible belt test promotion. From 8p to 9p, we did our high level kata’s, top ten DM’s both right handed and left handed.
While the probability of getting conked on the head with a swinging club/short stick/hammer is rather low, the practical application of defending against someone throwing a punch such as a swinging wild haymaker can be defended against using some side club techniques. There were a couple of them where blocking the incoming strike, strike the face or neck to stun, reach under the armpit to grab their collar and sweep the leg for a takedown and finish up with a swinging backfist to the nose breaking it.
Wedneaday, January 4, 2011
Before class, I was debating to tell my Sensei about the left shoulder MRI that shows a hold in my tendon which causes me some sharp pain when getting taken down and using my left arm to break the fall, or when I have to press down with a block. It hurts. My ego told me to not say anything and just keep doing what I have been doing with the rotator cuff pain for over a year. Or, tell the Sensei by saying I need to readjust my performance by trying to not make the rotator cuff injury worse. Surgery is always an option but the surgeon felt it may cause more harm than good since the injury doesn’t hurt doing day to day normal activities.
So after class, I told my Sensei about my injury and he was 100% supportive and understands that I am not 25 years old anymore and I have to make some physical adjustments.
This evening I did my 1/2 hour private class and we did some forms to warmup and then did our top 10 DM’s. The main part of the class was doing one for one kicks (instep, front ball, round house, back kick,reverse crescent and reverse spinning back kick) to warm up. Then we did our top 12 kempos. I was thrown on the floor a few times and felt the rotator cuff injury twinging a bit with some dull pain. Then we formed a group of five to do a dragon circle. I went first to do whatever came out. I did kempo #4 three times. I never do #4 and it came out tonight.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Scott joined the adult karate class tonight after a 3.5 year layoff. After warm-ups, the class was instructed to do some basic line drill warm-ups doing some basic 3-4 hand strike combos while half mooning forward. Then we partnered up to do our most recently learned kempo’s. For Scott, he seemed to have picked up these kempo’s fairly quick: 1, 2, 4,6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15 (best one), 18, 20, 22, and 27. That’s not too bad after 3.5 years.
Monday December 19, 2011
After warm-ups we broke into groups of four to run through our DM’s and overhead club techniques. I did a total of 30 DM’s and 8 overheads. It was a fairly straight-forward drills class.
Monday, December 12, 2011 – Denver area karate
Tonight we did forms as part of the warm-ups. Pinan 1, 2 and Kata 1. Sensei called out kata 5 and I started off doing Pinan 5 and ended off doing Southern Engles. At least I did something.
Then we formed groups of 4 to do our kempos in sets of 5 up to doing all 30.
Then we paired off to do some basic hand to hand exercises of block-block-press-punch and doing this back and forth, both right and left sides.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Did a 1/2 hour private before the regular 60 minute karate class and focused on performing kata’s in a slower and purposeful manner. Not all speed and flash but demonstrate on how the form is to be performed with an imaginary attacker.
The adult karate class had us focusing on doing ‘monkee in the middle” pad work. The person in the middle had to pucnh and kick back and forth between the pad holders. The point being was to align the hips properly, proper foot stance, rotating hips properly, etc…Plus it was a full intense workout too.
Monday, Nov 28, 2011
We started off the night with count downs. Started at 10 reps and then down to 1. Order of exercises were: Jumping jacks, push-ups, crunches, squats and the one I picked, calf raises. I was happy with my performance because I was done first and I wasn’t winded that bad.
Then we partnered up to do one for one exercises working on doing basic outward, inward and downward blocks and countering with a punch. Once we got these down fairly well, we got some pad and did some more back and forth blocking and countering.
This led up to setting up a gauntlet with everybody in the class either holding hand pad or a kick shield. The exercise was to rapidly (not think about it) hit each hand pad the person was holding or kick shield, wherever they held it, you had to hit it. The second round of the gauntlet was to hit each hand pad twice and the kick shield twice. I did real well up until the last two people, just lost some concentration and started kicking when I should have been punching or visa-versa.
