Sad Tidings, and New Developments

There have been a few recent developments in my martial arts life; man, things are always interesting and challenging. After the euphoria of getting to pursue Judo again (alongside BJJ) on my lunch hours, it was quite a blow when my Corporate Overlords (good call, Pat) decided to tighten up our lunch schedules at work.

For the past 6 years, as long as everyone got their work done, it didn't matter how long we took for lunch. No one cared. Last week, all that changed. Doing several BJJ classes, and Judo study sessions per week, was taking 2+ hours for lunch (driving time, class, showering, etc). So my work friend and I had to cancel our gym memberships at the BJJ place, which is also the space we used to practice Judo a couple times a week. In a nutshell, my throwing and grappling studies sadly ground to a halt.

I'm not complaining, I know I still have it better than most people do, with the job I have, and they had every right to tweak their expectations. I take SOME comfort in the fact I'll still be able to pursue karate, but that progress has been slow.

The powers that be aren't completely locking down lunches to one hour - we can get a little more, we just have to make up the time elsewhere. But they still don't want us gone for 2 hours.

It was crushing me to have to halt lunchtime martial arts, but there is a possible solution.  There is a Krav Maga school 6 minutes from where I work. The schedule is good, they have lunch classes, and the classes are only an hour, so I can do a few classes per week, and just work 30 minutes late on those days. They also have some classes that start 15 minutes after I get off work so those are possibilities too. The lineage is good too; it's in the "Fit to Fight" organization, which split off from KM Worldwide. The head of the organization was a high ranking guy under Darrin Levine of KMWW.

I've always had some interest in Krav / Combatives / "Reality Based" arts. The only thing I really don't care for about them, is how *in general* a lot of their practitioners pooh-pooh the value of traditional martial arts (some of which is justified, but they paint with too broad a brush for my taste). When it comes to martial arts, I don't get into the exclusivity, the "my art is better than all others" mentality. Of course I had to deal with that in BJJ as well. I learned from Pat, "all martial arts are the same". ;-)    There's something to be learned from all of them.

I'll continue to study karate, but I'm going to a trial Krav class today, to see how it goes. I'll report back here!

Karate, 1/16/16

We did what I'm going to call "homeopathic" karate training today! The first principle of homeopathic medicine is similia similibus curentur ("let likes cure likes"). The oversimplified idea is that if a patient has a headache for example, the homeopathic doctor might give him something that causes headaches in healthy people to cure the headache of the patient.  Fascinating stuff!

Anyway, one of the troubles I've been having in my karate development has been slowness. Taking too long to initiate and/or complete a technique, or taking a long time to step from one stance to another. In my teacher's words, "like I'm dragging a heavy weight behind me".  Today, we warmed up doing our blocking series while holding 10 pound dumbbells in the blocking hand. Then, for about half the class, I was attached to a resistance band that was constantly pulling me backward! I had to step through kicks, punches, stance changes, etc. What a workout!  For the last part of the class, without the band on me, my teacher was well pleased with the quick improvement!  I may start doing that at home occasionally too.

I went through a few reps of heian nidan, and I need more work on my kime. I can't think of anything analogous to kime in aikido or judo - kake doesn't really need kime, usually.

Finally, we sparred for several rounds. We used karate gloves and mouthpieces so we could go a little harder today, and what fun it was!  I got popped in the eye a few times, kicked in the gut, but nothing bad.

A couple things to note: My teacher insists I'm probably really about green belt level in skill. That's great news to me, as I'd rather be a yellow belt with green belt skill than a green belt with orange belt skill. I might test for orange at the end of February. The other thing is my homework for the whole week; he says my biggest enemy is tension. Apparently I'm still really tense while doing a lot of kihon, kata, or kumite, or anything. I'm a pretty analytical guy, and to try to think "fast, relaxed, & powerful (not to mention "with correct technique")" it all just jumbles up and conflicts in my head. I think that's what's bogging me down. We'll see how things go this week.

Karate Homework, 1/10/16

Tonight I did the following:

A few stance cycles through front, back, and horse stances. There's some stance progression exercise I saw in a book I referenced a couple days ago, but for the life of me, I can't remember which book it was in.

Next I went through the block/punch microkatas I talked about last time.

• Rising block microkata: 10x each side
• Outside block microkata: 10x each side
• Low block microkata: 10x each side
• Forearm block microkata: 10x each side
• All of them together: 2x each side

Then some kicking kihon:

• Front kick: 10x each side
• Side kick: 10x each side
• Roundhouse kick: 10x each side
• Back kick: 10x each side
• Kicking microkata: 5x each side

Finally, I went through a few kata:

• Heian Shodan: 1x
• Heian Nidan: 2x
• Heian Sandan (as well as I could recall it): 1x

Karate, 1/9/16

After warming up, my teacher introduced me to something he's trying with all his students this year. He's noticed that when students perform kata, they aim for meticulous technique, but are more lazy about it when doing kihon. In order to encourage more care during kihon, he's come up with a few "micro kata".

They all begin in a front stance and are done on both sides. So, assuming a left-foot forward front stance, the kata run as follows:

• Left rising block, right rising block, left punch to the face, right punch to the body
• Left outside block, right outside block, left punch to the face, right punch to the body
• Left downward block, right downward block, left punch to the face, right punch to the body
• Left forearm block, right forearm block, left punch to the face, right punch to the body
• Finally, perform all of them end to end

All of these are done with a hip switch for every technique, and it is quite a hip workout!

The kicking microkata are also performed on both sides, and assuming a left foot forward front stance, go like this:

• Right front snap kick, landing in a right foot forward front stance
• Step backward into the original left foot forward front stance, then left front (lead leg) snap kick
• Bring feet together and do a right side snap kick 90 degrees to your right, and land in a right foot forward front stance, facing that same 90 degrees to the right of the original direction
• Execute a right roundhouse kick toward the original direction you were facing, landing in a right foot forward front stance
• Execute a right back kick, landing in your original left foot forward front stance

Whew! I hope all that made sense. I'm going to try to get a lot of reps in over the next week.

Next we worked on heian nidan some more. We did some fine tuning on my side snap kick toward the beginning. I still need to increase my speed when moving from one step to the next (we figure I'm thinking about it too much). I need more kime in my techniques in general, and I need to punctuate the kiai techniques more. 

This karate experience, in traditional Shotokan, has proven to be a much more precise approach than either judo or aikido. That's a mixed bag to me; I can see the drawbacks, but there's also something in me that loves it. Even if it can be frustrating at times. Sensei is constantly fine tuning my karate. While I do enjoy it, and know it will make me better, I can relate to a quote from Funakoshi from Karate-do, My Way of Life:  "This constant repetition of a single kata was grueling, often exasperating, and on occasion humiliating."   Ha! You said it, Gichin. 

We ended the class looking at some sparring applications. Kind of a triple punch designed to cover a lot of distance and overwhelm an opponent. I am always amazed how my teacher can seem almost to teleport, haha. He will be way too far away to do anything to me, and next thing I know, he just lightly tapped me in the throat. I really look forward to getting better!  Now that I'm not doing judo two nights per week, I hope to practice more at home.

This Week in (My) Martial Arts (Dec 1-5, 2015)

It's been a super busy week, so I haven't had a chance to post. My wife is still recovering from hip surgery, so I've been taking care of her, the house, etc, and I've fallen behind in my training logs.

To compound matters, I've trained a heck of a lot more this week than normal. I've joined UFC Gym, and in addition to a couple of pre-workday kickboxing classes, I've added no less than three BJJ classes per week! They offer them at lunch, so it should be easy for me to make most of the classes.

Here is the breakdown, as I remember it:

BJJ, 12/1/15
We worked on a ground mobility cycle that took us from kesa, to side control, to ushiro kesa, to mount, then up the other side. Basically everything except north-south. The focus was on not getting rushed, and constant pressure.
We also worked on an Americana and straight armbar with the legs, both from kesa.
We wrapped up the class with five, 6-minute rounds of rolling.

BJJ, 12/3/15
We reviewed the two armlocks from the previous class, then went over the following choke from mount:



We rolled for three, 6-minute rounds to end the class.

BJJ, 12/4/15
We reviewed the two arm locks again, then looked at another choke from north-south. I hardly remember the details, sadly. I need more drilling.  We ended with four rounds of rolling.

Karate, 12/5/15
Promotion time is coming up, so 90% of the lesson, we worked on my orange belt promotion material. Kihon, three-step sparring, and heian nidan. I need to fix the following things in heian nidan:

• My spear hand is too high
• My back foot always turns out on the second kibadachi, for some reason
• I need to work my hips more in that same transition

We also went over my tendency to do things really slowly. I need to start moving faster. Not just the strikes and kicks themselves, but from the moment it begins, it all needs to be faster. I'm concentrating a lot on doing it correctly, and that's slowing me down. 

Karate, 10/17/15

We started off with a few reps each of heian nidan and heian sandan. Then we did lots of solo sidekick and roundhouse drills, then moved on to partner drills for roundhouse kicks and a couple of punching combinations. The partner drills were awesome-sauce, and really helped with timing and focus.

A few things I need to work on:

• Two turns in heian sandan: the one coming out of the spearhand into the spinning hammerfist, and the one where you turn with your hands on your hips before the stomps and elbow "blocks"
• Need continued work on my roundhouse kick
• Need to work on "landing" in a good back or horse stance. I keep having to make adjustments ("arbitrary steps" in KG aikido terminology) after moving from one stance to another. 

Might be time to test again next month, so it's time to get to work!

Karate, 10/10/15

We warmed up by going through heian nidan a few times. Again, I need lots of tweaking. Next we worked on the hand and foot techniques and 3-step sparring for the next couple of tests.

One thing I really need to work on is relaxing, loosening up. I tried to get a bunch of slow reps of down blocks over the rest of the weekend, trying to get the feel right. I'm also still struggling getting my hips right during blocking.

Lastly, we did a bit of free sparring. My teacher welcomed me to include some aikido and judo, so I did. One thing about aikido, it's tough against a karate player; they don't leave their hands out there for very long. I was able to pretty consistently catch his roundhouse kick by getting off the line though. A couple times I was able to set up a good tai otoshi, but I had to eat some strikes to do so. All in all, my sparring was better this time around, according to him.

Karate, 10/3/15

Finally got to do some karate again!

We started with a review of Heian Nidan, then I learned Heian Sandan. I love learning new kata!
Next we reviewed line work and three-step sparring for orange and green belt.

Finally he taught me the karate version of a footsweep, ashi barai. Man, that was cool! It seemed a lot less dependent on timing, which I liked. It works while you're avoiding a punch, or as a follow up to a punch of your own. And even if it doesn't drop the person, it puts you in a great position for a follow up attack. I loved it!

My teacher has asked me to give an aikido lesson to his karate class one evening soon. I'm excited about that! Just need to plan it out and make it interesting for karate folk!

Karate Konundrum

I love karate. A few things I like about it are:

• Solo Kata. Karate has way more in the way of solo practice methods than judo or aikido. 
• Paired kata-based drills. The stuff Iain Abernethy does with regard to kata-based sparring really helps make traditional karate work as a practical means of self-defense
• Legacy. I just really like the history and rich tradition of karate. 

But as I've said before, it's hard to get training in karate around here. I mean, there are a ton of karate dojos, but very few of them are what I'd consider legit. Of those, the schedules don't work for me, and the teachers I've reached out to aren't keen on doing private lessons. My current Shotokan teacher has been okay, but lately he hasn't been available for lessons. I't been about 3 weeks since I've been able to train with him.

Even though karate provides for solo training, when I'm not doing regular lessons, I'm finding it hard to stay motivated to practice at home regularly. That's on me. 

For all the reasons above, I chose karate for my striking discipline, but if it's increasingly difficult to train, it may not be the best choice for me. Since my main concern is self-defense, the Shotokan I'm learning has to be heavily supplemented anyway. I'm wondering if I should switch over to another striking art. It would have to be something more modern like Krav Maga/Combatives and/or kickboxing/Muay Thai. I think either of those would be easier (more efficient) to learn than karate, and there's a lot of kickboxing around here, even at my judo club. I also have some guys at work that might be interested in kickboxing with me during lunch breaks. 

Even if I stop karate lessons, I can still practice the two kata I know in my free time (heian shodan and nidan). I'm not sure what I'm gonna do yet. Just putting thoughts-to-keyboard to try to sort it out. 

Karate, 9/5/15

After a warm up, we learned a few one-steps. All are done against a right-handed punch to the face:

1. Parry with right hand as I evade to the back right, counter with right elbow
• I need to work on the parry:
• Don't over-extend my arm
• Parry with palm, not fingers
• Use hips for power in the elbow strike
• Choose my target
2. Parry with left hand as I evade to the back right, right ridge hand strike to neck or temple
• I need to work on the arc of my ridge hand. I'm going too "straight in"
3. Rising block with left hand as I evade to the back left, counter with right roundhouse kick and right punch to the ribs
• Need to work on judging my distance better so I don't have to readjust after my evasion. Lots of the efficiency of movement we're working on reminds me of aikido.
4. Rising block with left hand as I evade directly backward, counter with right front kick and right punch to the face

On all of these drills, I need to get used to evading away from uke. I think aikido and judo have made me want to enter. There are times shotokan enters (just like we can also evade away in aikido), but not in these drills.

Next we did some good old line work. Kihon can be hard work! I was ready to hurl a couple of times.

We ended the class with some light free-sparring. It was a lot of fun! Although I was uke for most of it, haha. I'm impressed with (higher level) karate's ability to fight from long range. I suppose aikido and judo are both technically grappling arts, and are usually within one or two arm's lengths. Toward the end I decided to try to stay in short range. There's definitely a different dynamic, but I didn't fare much better. I think my teacher has learned to deal with different ranges after 35 years of practice   ;-)

Looking forward to next time!

Karate, 8/20/15 (Belt Demo)

Thursday I tested for yellow belt in karate. Students from three schools gathered at the Hammond dojo to do their belt demos, 15 of us in all. I was one of 3 white belts testing for yellow. I had to perform heian shodan, hand kihon, foot kihon, and three-step sparring. The way they grade in this organization is "A", "B", or "Fail". I received an "A" and was promoted to yellow belt, which is 8th kyu in this system. I'm just getting started, but they allow you to test relatively frequently, and sometimes you can double-test if you're ready. My instructor thought I might get to double test this time, but there were no yellow belts testing for orange so I didn't get to. No big deal, the work continues.

Karate, 8/17/15

Had a make-up lesson Monday night; we worked on nothing but the test material, since I'll be testing for yellow belt tomorrow night, and possibly (hopefully) orange belt.
I guess I'm feeling best about the katas, and worst about the 3-step sparring. I haven't practiced it much, and when I have, my distance is off.

Karate Homework, 8/2/15

Last night I decided to start focusing more on the testing material, until I test later this month. To that end, here's what I did:


Stance progression:  10 times each side

Heian Shodan: Three times

Heian Nidan (all of it): Three times

Yellow belt hand technique demo: three times

Yellow belt kicking demo: three times

Yellow belt three-step sparring: once, with my imaginary friend

Orange belt hand technique demo: three times

Orange belt kicking demo: one time, but I'm confused and have reached out to my teacher for clarification.

Karate, 8/1/15

After stretching and going through kihon, we took another look at my heian shodan. Here are the tweaks my instructor suggested this time:

• My wrist is bent on my rising blocks. I need to straighten it out.
• I'm still fighting old muscle memory when it comes to my hip direction during blocks. Need more work on that.
• My back stance is still all jacked up! I don't know why it's so elusive to me, but I'll keep at it. 

Earlier this week, my instructor said he wanted me to test for yellow belt later this month. During class yesterday, he suggested I test for orange on the same night.  I'm pretty confident in the yellow belt material, but nervous about the orange belt stuff. 

He showed me the 3-step sparring stuff I'll need for yellow belt, and the basics demo I need for Orange. In a couple of weeks, he'll show me the 3-step I need for orange. He also showed me the rest of heian nidan. I really like the kata but the second half is totally new to me.

I have a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks! 

Karate Homework, 7/31/15

Stance progression:  10 times each side

Rising block: 10 times each side, front stance

Down block: 10 times each side, front stance

Front kicks: 10 times each side, front stance

Side kicks: 10 times each side, holding wall

Back kicks: 10 times each side, holding wall

Roundhouse kick (over back of a chair): 10 times each side, holding wall

Heian Shodan: Three times

Heian Nidan (First half): Three times

Yellow belt hand technique demo: three times

Yellow belt kicking demo: three times

Karate Homework, 7/28/15

Stance progression:  10 times each side

Punches: 10 times each side, horse stance

Backfists: 10 times each side, horse stance

Backfists with step: 10 times each side, horse stance

Rising block: 10 times each side, horse stance

Down block: 10 times each side, front stance

Inside block: 10 times each side, front stance

Outside block: 10 times each side, horse stance

Knife hand block: 10 times each side, back stance

Front kicks: 10 times each side, front stance

Side kicks: 10 times each side, holding wall

Back kicks: 10 times each side, holding wall

Roundhouse kick (over back of a chair): 10 times each side, holding wall

Heian Shodan: Three times

Heian Nidan (First half): Three times

Yellow belt hand technique demo: three times

Yellow belt kicking demo: three times


Notes:

• I feel like I'm "getting" back stance better today. 
• Both my hips are killing me from side and roundhouse kicks - they're not used to that range of motion. 

Karate Homework, 7/26/15

Stance progression:  10 times each side

Hip rotation:   10 times each side

Punches: 10 times each side, horse stance

Backfists: 5 times each side, horse stance

Backfists with step: 5 times each side, horse stance

Rising block: 10 times each side, horse stance

Down block: 10 times each side, front stance

Front kicks: 10 times each side, front stance

Side kicks: 10 times each side, holding wall

Back kicks: 10 times each side, holding wall

Heian Shodan: Twice

Heian Nidan (First half): Once

Yellow belt hand technique demo: three times

Yellow belt kicking demo: three times


My main focus this time was on correcting my back stance; keeping my torso upright instead of leaning back.

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!

Karate Homework, 7-23-15

Stances:

Stayed in front, back, and horse stance, for 30 seconds each side

Walked the floor in front and back stance, 4 steps each, total.

Strikes:

• Punches: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Backfists: 20 each side, all from horse stance.

Blocks:

• Rising block: 10 each side, all from horse stance.
• Down block: 10 each side, all from front stance.
• Inside block: 10 each side, all from front stance.
• Outside block: 10 each side, all from front stance.
• Knife hand block: 10 each side, all from back stance.

Kicks:

• Front kicks: 10 each side.
• Side kicks: 10 each side.
• Back kicks: 10 each side.
• Roundhouse set up (Leg lift only): 10 each side.
• Roundhouse set up (lift and rotate only): 10 each side.

Movement:

• Hip rotation: 20 each side.

Katas:

• Heian Shodan: 2 repetitions.
• Heian Nidan (to the first kiai): 3 repetitions.

Karate Homework, 7-20-15

Figured maybe I overdid it last time, so trimmed it back a little, but for endurance and time's sake.

Stances:

Stayed in front, back, and horse stance, for 30 seconds each side.

Walked the floor in front and back stance, 4 steps each, total.

Strikes:

• Punches: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Backfists: 20 each side, all from horse stance.

Blocks:

• Rising block: 10 each side, all from horse stance.
• Down block: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Inside block: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Outside block: 10 each side, all from front stance.
• Knife hand block: 10 each side, all from back stance

Kicks:

• Front kicks: 10 each side.
• Focused on keeping hips close to the same height throughout
• Side kicks: 10 each side.
• Back kicks: 10 each side.
• Roundhouse set up (Leg lift only): 10 each side.
• Roundhouse set up (lift and rotate only): 10 each side.

Movement:

• Hip rotation: 10 each side.

Katas:

• Heian Shodan: 2 repetitions.
• Focused on my 3 "tweaks"
• Heian Nidan (to the first kiai): 2 repetitions.