Karate, 7/25/15

Today was my second private karate lesson. We warmed up by doing a neat little stance progression that went like this:

• Move into a front stance with either a punch or low block, I can't remember which
• From there, the front leg comes back, then out into horse stance with a side elbow strike
• The same leg moves backward into back stance while doing a knife hand block
• Move same leg into front stance and it cycles for X repetitions
• Repeat on other side
• Things to remember:
• Keep hips at same level throughout all movements
• My back stance needs work

This was a great warmup, and I need to build more endurance to do much of it.

We warmed up more with some front kicks, side kicks, and a 2-person roundhouse kick drill. I need to make all my kicks more fluid. So far I keep breaking all the details down in my mind and it makes for choppy technique. We also did a few back fists and back fists with a kind of lunging step. I need to remember to breathe through all my movements, especially kicks.

Next we looked at the rank material for yellow belt. Seemed pretty straight forward. 

• For hand techniques, you demonstrate 
• three punches while moving forward in front stance 
• three rising blocks while moving backward in front stance 
• three forearm / outside blocks while moving forward in front stance
• three knife hand blocks while moving backward in back stance
• For foot techniques, you demonstrate
• four front kicks while moving forward in front stance
• four side kicks while moving sideways in horse stance
• remember hips must not turn at all during these
• Three step sparring
• We haven't covered this yet
• Kata
• Heian shodan
• I need to clean up my high blocks
• I need to really work on my knife hand blocks and back stances
• I also need to work on my hip direction during high and low blocks

Karate is turning out to be really hard work. Now to get to practicing!