Dear followers,
I am sorry it has been so long since I posted and I am sorry to inform you but as September, I am no longer taking the karate course I was enrolled in. I may in the future return to them but, for the next few years at least I will not be taking karate. I don't know if anyone has bothered to continue following this thread but in case anyone is still out there, I apologize for not letting you know sooner and I hope you aren't too disappointed.

Catch up

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't responded in like... a week. I'm sort of excited though because after checking my stats, I see that some people are watching my blog so HIII PEOPLE! I went last Wednesday to karate and we mainly worked on ground work... I can't find the notes I took on it but might tell you about it tomorrow or later this week. Tonight we worked on a whole mix of stuff though.

We started out by our "usual" warm-up, no special thing like the other days.We did however work on fudo ken and stomp kicks. Fudo ken is Japanese for firm fist. We practiced first fudo ken then, with the stomp kicks, my school's head teacher took the bags and I got to take a few kicks at him haha.

After Stomp kicks, we started working on kihon waza ichi, or basic technique number one. We started out in seigan no kamae and as the fighter swung with a hook punch, we stepped to the outside and blocked to the outside, then striked with an ura shuto to the side of the neck, making sure to bring the hand up and making the shuto a guard as well as a strike. Out teacher also explained that, for this technique, it is very important to have good timing.
We then changed the technique a little and instead of being in seigan no kamae, changed to ichimonji no kamae. However, unlike in seigan, the focus was less on power and more on precision, striking not with your fist but your knuckles, right to the soft spot of the elbow. Additionally, instead of striking with ura shuto to the neck, we striked with omote shuto to  the arm, knocking their shoulder back, making it impossible for them to  kick without stepping. We did that for a while until our teacher instructed us to stop and added on some more to it. The technique then changed to ko ku, where we added to the technique a kick, from the attacker, and the person moved out of the way and kicking their leg to the side and stepping behind the attacker. They then striked with boshi ken to the soft spot of the person's back.

After that we did the final move Yoku do, or skillfully precise. Yoku do is a move where a person grabs you in kim uchi, and, according to our head instructor, is the most important technique to know. In Yoku do, the person does a hook punch boshi ken to the neck while, at the same time, swinging your leg up in between the attackers. They then did a palm strike up under the chin causing the people to fall down. I enjoyed actually being knocked down because it gave me an excuse to practice my rear shoulder rolls ;).

Well I'll make sure to post more often but I am off. If you would like to ask me questions I would love to answer any. Good bye whoever is out there reading this.

Roku shaku bo

Sorry for not posting last night, there was a problem with the website. Well, on a small tangent, I am now 20. But, last night in karate the whole class was dedicated to bo work.

For a warm up, we did rolls, then dive rolls. Although rolls are BY FAR my least favorite thing to do, I must say I did quite well on my dive rolls, which made me pretty happy since my grandparents came and watched.

Once we finished practicing rolls, we quickly were told to get long bo's or the roku shaku bo's, roku shaku translating 6 feet. We started off by practicing downward strikes with the bo, starting in seigan no kamae, or “in-between the eyes” stance, sliding the bo behind us, and lifting it over our shoulders and pulling down with the hand at the end of the bo.

We then worked on hane age,or lifting of the cuffs, which slides the bo back, but pulls it the opposite way and strikes to the leg or cuff.

After getting familiar with the bo, we partnered up and started doing ashi barai, or cutting sweep. In my academy's version of ashi barai, we practice hitting with the same end of the bo each time. We start in seigan no kamae, sliding the bow back behind us like in the practices we did before partnering up. Bringing the left hand, or whichever hand is in front, around to the other hip, switching our legs as well, both people hit with the ends of their bo.

The technique we do however so that we hit with the same end each time is, once the left hand is on our hips, we move it down to about half way down the bo and slide both hands up, so that the right hand is up-top. We then do the same as before only on the opposite side. We did this a couple of times, switching partners, until almost the end.

When it was 5 minutes until the end of class, the teacher told us to come up front as we practiced different bo kamae. The first posture, hira ichimonji no kamae, has the arms shoulder-width apart, the bo held directly in front of the person.

The second posture we did, dai jodan no kamae, or literally “very upper level posture.” In Dai jodan no kamae, the leading arm is pointing forward, the hand just lower than the person's chin. The bo rests on the rear hand, which is right above the person's head and the leading hand pointing outward.

The next posture we did was chudan no kamae, or middle posture. As its name says, Chudan no kamae is done with the bo completely straight, the back arm resting on the bo. The fourth posture, seigan no kamae, is our school's “trademark kamae.” Seigan no kamae, with tbe bo, has the bo pointing in between the opponent's eyes, the weight distribution with the legs about 70/30. The final kamae we did was gedan no kamae, or low posture. Gedan is much like seigan only, instead of pointing toward the person, the bo is slid back and hidden behind the rear leg.

Well that's it for now. I'm going to karate tomorrow as well so I'll update you as soon as I get back from it.

Hook Punches

Good morning everyone! Just got back from karate, which was totally awesome. For a warm up, we did san shin no kata, "duck walking" and yoko aruki.

San shin in Japanese translates three hearts, or mind, body, and spirit. San shin is meant to help martial artists in the field of karate pull all three hearts together thus making them a better martial artist, as none of them can survive without the others. San shin is divided up into 5 different "exercises." Chi no kata, sui no kata, hi no kata, fu no kata and ku no kata.

Chi no kata is Earth. In Chi no kata, along with all the other san shin, you are in boby no kamae, with your hand on your belt and your hand pointing out with a natural bend to it. In Chi no kata, your foot and arm which is forward move back, as the hand on your belt swings back and, stepping forward with your back foot, make a throwing motion, as if you were trying to gently throw an egg over a huge wall. You then repeat that on the opposite side and flow back and forth. Sui no kata is Water. For sui no kata, instead of stepping backwards with your front foot, you step to the side with your back foot and make a circling motion with it, going with the flow of the motions, you then do omote shuto to the person's neck and shoulder area. For Hi no kata, or fire, you do the same as sui no kata, only instead of omote shuto, which makes a lassoing motion, you do ura shuto, which makes what I like to think of as a "lightning" motion, as you bring your hand and arm across your body and above your head and shoulder and strike down like lightning. Fu no kata, or wind, makes the circling motion like sui no kata and hi no kata but somewhat like chi no kata, the arm swings up and does shikan ken, a type of punch where you strike with your knuckles. For the final one, ku no kata, the person swings their arm around again but then brings their other arm to do mitsubishi( or distraction) and stomp kicks, stepping down and doing the same on the other side.

After San shin, we worked on two different types of "walking."The first one "duck walking" you do while kneeling. Having live toes, you bring one knee forward and bending down, pivot on it, moving the other knee forward. One of the most important things to remember though is to keep your foot underneath you when you pivot and not have it dragging behind you. After duck walking, we did yoko aruki, or side-to-side walking. Whichever direction your walking in, you have that foot pointing forward and make a small step with the other, stepping just past the forward pointing foot. You then make a large step with the forward pointing foot etc.

But, for the actual class, we worked on all the different types of hook punch defenses. We first worked on a gold belt technique, where, when the attacker does the hook punch, the person being attacked blocks, elbow strikes to the side of the head, and snap kicks to the stomach.

After that activity, we moved to an orange belt technique where the person defends the punch by stepping to the inside and striking the attacker's arm with an outside block. They then step in with the back foot and strike with an omote shuto to the side of the neck then a stomp kick to the midsection. 

We then worked on the purple belt move osote geti/osoto gake. In this technique, when the attacker comes with the hook punch, the person defends themselves by stepping away with the back foot and stopping the punch with an outside block. Next, they grab the opposite arms shoulder and, swinging the back foot behind the attacker, sweeping their feet out and taking them to the ground. I say osoto geti/osoto gake, because osoto geti, you swing your leg right through their leg while osoto gake, places the leg at the crook of their leg and the hand on the opposite shoulder pushed the person down.

The next technique we did was a brown belt technique called sankaku jime, a triangular choke. In the technique, instead of blocking the attackers hook punch, the person merely ducks down under the arm, bringing their inside arm around to the person's shoulder. Looping around to the back of them, they then grab their forearm and flex their arm, causing the person's bloodflow to be cut off.

The next technique we did was a red belt hook punch defense. In the technique, when the attacker punched, the person would, in one continuous motion, block their punch and grab, place their hand behind the attacker's head, and spin around pushing their head to the ground. This was probably one of my favorite because its a really good technique for practicing forward shoulder rolls, which I still somewhat struggle with.

The final two techniques were black belt techniques. The first one when the attacker punched, the person did an outside block, bent the elbow and pressed it to their chest, moved around to the back of the attacker and stepped to the side and sunk. The second was against a knife. The person being attacked was in hira ichimonji no kamae. As the person with the knife comes in to strike, the other moves to the side and makes a sideways u with their body, moving their hips back and arms forward. They then grab the hand of the person with the knife and pull them to the ground.

I was pretty excited about doing one of the orange belt moves, as I have a slight feeling I'm going to be promoted in the next month or so, plus the fact that I love omote and ura shuto. Tomorrow is my birthday so I probably won't be on but I have karate again Monday night so I'll probably see you guys (if anyone is reading this) then.

Blackbelt Ceremony

Last Sunday I went to a Black Belt Ceremony. Here's two of my black belt friend's battling it out. The move that they do from 0:55-0:57 is tate nagare.

Introduction

Hello whoever is out there reading this! I was bored and thought "hey what the heck I'll make a blog." And seeing as I am fricken obsessed with karate I decided I'd write a blog about karate. Well, anyway, I have been taking karate for about a year and have gotten to the oh so high rank of ORANGE BELT(Since this is online and its hard sometimes for people to get my sarcasm, I was just being incredibly sarcastic)! I'm in an adult class however, so in the classes there are all different belt levels, so I know some pretty high level techniques. Two of my favorite are ganseki nage, which translates "rock throw," and tate nagare, which translates "front-to-back stream." I go to karate Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights from 8:15-9:00 and Saturday morning 8:15-9:00. I'll probably try and tell you guys what I do each night when I get back. But, as they would say in Japan, sayonara!