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.

Walking, Part 1

Pat recently issued a blogging challenge: write a blog post every day for 12 days, about tegatana no kata, Tomiki Aikido's walking kata. While I don't think I'm going to take up the full challenge (I won't even try for every day), I'm going to try to write 12 posts about walking. I'm not sure I have that much to say about it, so some posts might be very short, and not worth reading.

Tonight as I was thinking about what I might write, I thought I might as well go through the kata once so it would be fresh on my mind. I went into my man cave and had an idea: The room was already a little disorganized since I taught a concealed carry class in it last night. I decided to leave it as it was, and clutter it up a little more for an experiment.

So I began the kata among stacks of CDs, plastic containers, and a chair. Maybe a dozen obstacles in all. I was trying to keep the motions in correct directions, relative to where I was when I began each step, but allowed myself to randomize the direction I was facing before beginning each new step.  I found myself needing to take bigger or smaller steps, even in the same section of movements. Keeping my mind on the footwork to avoid tripping or stepping on something was a new thing. I figure any time I need to move in an aiki-like fashion, it probably won't be under ideal conditions.

So the things I might have gotten out of the experiment were as follows:

• A slightly more "realistic" practice
• Confusion that distracted me from doing the arm movements and prearranged "dance steps" just so
• A more interesting repetition of the kata
• Avoiding tidying up my room for one more night

Universal

Pat's Naihanchi stuff this past Saturday was so interesting, it may have renewed my interest in karate. I think I'm going to try to start practicing Ten No Kata again, just to get my feet wet again. It's simple, it's easy, it's......universal?

Picking One Thing

I read a quote from my teacher today (who was paraphrasing one of his teachers) regarding aikido training:

"...you pick one thing to put into place and the rest of it goes to pot, but if you succeed in putting that one piece into place then you have succeeded at that repetition of the kata. Then you pick another aspect and your first thing goes to pieces but eventually working at it like this more than one aspect begins falling into place at a time."

I tend to go in cycles of being (somewhat) comfortable, then overwhelmed in my training. Lately, I've been going through the "overwhelmed" stage again. Not in a frustrating way...more of a sense of awe/wonder at what a deceptively complex art aikido is (that is, how freaking cool it all is!).

Anyway, it can be tough to remember and do more than a handful of things during a technique (example: don't bend your arm, don't force it, move your feet, point your center at your hand, relax, etc). I'm going to use this in my solo practice, whether with the walking kata, or practicing with my imaginary uke. I'll consider it a successful rep if I get that one thing right that I chose to focus on.

One More Thought About Kata

I just read a really interesting interview Pat did of Marc "Animal" MacYoung. It reminded me of something else Pat was saying about kata and bunkai on Saturday (I'll paraphrase) -

"In most of the books, all you see of the kata are the positions you end up in at the end of each move, as if that's the most important part. What they're leaving out is how you get to that position...what happens leading up to it. That's where the good/important stuff is."

Bunkai Discussion

After our Aiki session on Saturday, Pat and I discussed kata bunkai for a little while. At the risk of repeating myself, my upbringing in striking arts (Tang Soo Do) taught that the kata or forms were meant to practice against imaginary opponents. Period. Nothing more. To be fair, I was a kid, and maybe that's just how they taught the stuff to that age group. So I'd practice low-blocking attack after attack from imaginary opponents while running through my forms at home.

I had always heard how these old karate masters "hid" their secret techniques in kata. "Hah!" I thought. "I don't see any hidden techniques! It's just a bunch of blocks and strikes!" (now I'm older and realize what "hidden" means).

I didn't realize until recently, as I'm getting interested in karate again, that there is definitely more than meets the eye when it comes to kata. In addition to the not-so-obvious applications of the particular techniques, Pat was talking about how the kata were devised partly as mnemonic devices for solo practice of more than just the kihon that were displayed in them (wrist releases, hair pulls, off balances - you name it!).

After our conversation, I'm starting to think karate kata have more in common with tegatana no kata than I originally thought. In tegatana (our style of Aikido's solo kata), none of the motions are actual techniques. Instead, each movement is an opportunity to practice certain types of motion...certain principles that get applied during paired kata, randori, or self defense situations. However, I suppose in karate kata, to paraphrase Sigmund Freud, sometimes a punch is just a punch.

Heian Shodan

The only katas that really stuck with me from my days practicing Tang Soo Do are (the Korean versions of) Taikyoku Shodan and Taikyoku Nidan. One of the karate-do katas I'm trying to get familiar with on my own time at home is Heian Shodan. So far, the couple of things tripping me up are the things that differentiate this basic kata from Taikyoku 1 & 2.

First, there's a hammer fist or back fist, or something, as the fourth technique of the kata. This was never among the things I worked on back in the day. Same with the other thing that's most awkward to me - the sword hand blocks at the end of the kata. I think in a couple weeks Pat and I are going to do a karate lesson, so maybe it will get cleared up then, or in a subsequent lesson.

In the meantime, here's a video of the kata, for my reference:

Kata Study

Until I formally begin training in karate-do, I'm working on a few of the techniques on my own. As I said in a previous post, I've mainly been working on parts of tennokata omote. I'm about to begin studying Heian Shodan, Tekki Shodan, and Sanchin at home, to get started. I'll mainly be using the Best Karate series by Masatoshi Nakayama as a reference.