I was reading something the other day (I forget where!) that talked about the circle of knowledge. Imagine yourself at the centre of a circle and everything inside of that circle represents your amount of knowledge of a particular topic. Everything outside of the circle is knowledge that you do not yet possess, and of course, that is infinite.
Now look at the circumference of the circle, this lies between what you know and what you don't know; it represents your awareness of what you do not know. Now think about what happens as you learn more - the circle gets bigger, but so does the circumference. The more you learn, the more you realise you have yet to learn.
I am finding this little analogy to be true in many areas of my life but it is particularly apparent to me with karate. As a white belt, you learn a punch or two, a kick and a few basic blocks. When I first restarted karate last summer I quickly picked up these basics and (cockily) thought to myself, "yep, I know that, when can I grade?".
Obviously this was not the best attitude to have but I was overly keen to get to yellow belt so I would be back where I was before. I've reached that place now, one step ahead in fact and my attitude has been tempered a bit over the last few months and as I learn more and more I am now starting to realise just how much more there is to learn.
In last night's session we spent a lot of time focusing on two kicks - the front kick and side kick. For the front kick you need to bring the knee right up in preparation, thrust the hip forward for extra reach, deliver the kick quickly and snap back the leg as quickly as possible and land quickly and lightly. Oh, and you also need to keep your guard up - no flapping the arms around like you're trying to take off! Garry observed my kick and said that I was not retracting my leg fast enough or far enough so as a special exercise for me for the night I had to over emphasise the retraction and hit my opposite knee with my leg on the retraction before landing.
Ok that's the front kick; it's the most basic kick and it's not too complicated so far. Onto the side kick. The preparation is different, you need to bring the knee right around your body so that it is past the centre line that you are aiming for. You thrust the leg out to the side whilst twisting your body. The back foot should do a virtually 180 degree turn. Then there is foot positioning. The part of the foot to make impact should be the outside edge, not the flat of the foot. Furthermore, the foot should be pulled back so that it is the heel that makes the most impact as the force drives straight down through the leg and down into the heel. And don't forget that guard!
Now just when I thought I was starting to pull all these little details together, Garry throws another spanner in the works. He stood to the side of me and said I had to punch his hand with my front arm whilst I performed the kick! This was the opposite movement to what I had been doing thus far. My front arm was held out as a guard and tended to sway back a little to aid with balance but now I had to bring it right back and down. Apparently it makes for a much more powerful kick.
We had to put the two kicks together and add a reverse punch and I had to remember several little details of the punch as well. In this moment I felt a little overwhelmed. So many things to remember and its then that I realised that my circle of knowledge was expanding, and with it, my realisation of how much there is still to learn.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Saturday, 26 May 2007
Wado Kata: Nai Han Chi
Last Monday we had a relatively small class of all adults. Garry decided to do something completely different and teach us a traditional Wado-Ryu kata that is not part of the Higashi syllabus.
The kata is called Nai Han Chi after the stance in which most of the kata is based: Naihanchi stance. This is quite an awkward stance in which the feet are about two shoulders widths apart and the outside of your feet are facing forward parallel. The toes come inwards ever so slightly depending upon the shape of your foot. This is awkward because that position makes the knees want to bend inwards and this is not natural for the knees.
Excess training in this position can in fact be bad for the knees which is why the kata was dropped from the Higashi syllabus. However, it's always good to learn knew things and Garry made us aware of the way in which the knees were affected before we started and showed us how to ensure that they pointed outwards instead of inwards.
Aside from the weird stance, there were two other odd things with this kata. Firstly, it is performed on one horizontal line. Apparently it was designed to be practised on a small boat! In actual fact its small enough to be practised in the loo of the new building my company has moved too! I did try practising it the other day but then I heard somebody at the coffee machine outside the toilet which put me off :-)
The other weird thing about the kata is that all of the twisting movements are done with the upper body. Usually we twist at the hips shifting our weight from one stance into another. For example, a front punch followed by a reverse punch are performed in two distinct stances. In this kata there are movements which feel like they should be performed in Gyakusuki but they remain in Naihanchi. For example there is an elbow strike performed to the side which is very similar to the one in Pinan Yondan but in Yondan you shift into a Gyakusuki stance but here we stay in Naihanchi. So your feet are facing forwards but your upper body needs to be turned to the side for the elbow strike. This requires a lot of flexibility around the waist and feels just plain weird!
Anyway it was really interesting to learn something new even if it's not something I'll be whipping out for my next competition.
The kata is called Nai Han Chi after the stance in which most of the kata is based: Naihanchi stance. This is quite an awkward stance in which the feet are about two shoulders widths apart and the outside of your feet are facing forward parallel. The toes come inwards ever so slightly depending upon the shape of your foot. This is awkward because that position makes the knees want to bend inwards and this is not natural for the knees.
Excess training in this position can in fact be bad for the knees which is why the kata was dropped from the Higashi syllabus. However, it's always good to learn knew things and Garry made us aware of the way in which the knees were affected before we started and showed us how to ensure that they pointed outwards instead of inwards.
Aside from the weird stance, there were two other odd things with this kata. Firstly, it is performed on one horizontal line. Apparently it was designed to be practised on a small boat! In actual fact its small enough to be practised in the loo of the new building my company has moved too! I did try practising it the other day but then I heard somebody at the coffee machine outside the toilet which put me off :-)
The other weird thing about the kata is that all of the twisting movements are done with the upper body. Usually we twist at the hips shifting our weight from one stance into another. For example, a front punch followed by a reverse punch are performed in two distinct stances. In this kata there are movements which feel like they should be performed in Gyakusuki but they remain in Naihanchi. For example there is an elbow strike performed to the side which is very similar to the one in Pinan Yondan but in Yondan you shift into a Gyakusuki stance but here we stay in Naihanchi. So your feet are facing forwards but your upper body needs to be turned to the side for the elbow strike. This requires a lot of flexibility around the waist and feels just plain weird!
Anyway it was really interesting to learn something new even if it's not something I'll be whipping out for my next competition.
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
A Week at Ogwen Bank
Last week I attended the annual Higashi Karate course held at Ogwen Bank. Sensei Peter Spanton has been running courses here for 35 years. There are two courses run - a weekend course in September and a 5 day course in May. The layout for each day is similar for both courses.
After a long drive down, I arrived with Scott, Garry (my instructor) and Gill at around 7pm. We dumped a few things in our room and ordered a chinese. They all wanted to crack open the beers but I decided to lay off the drink, at least initially. I got a lot of stick from the guys but they got used to it after a day or two.
Training starts out at 7.30am with a gruelling exercise session down in a muddy field by the river Ogwen. I'm so glad that I was warned to bring waterproofs with me. On the first morning I yawned my way down to the field and the first thing Peter boomed out was "Press-up position!". I looked down at the wet, muddy grass which was covered in goose poo and thought to myself "I'm not getting down there!". Of course, when in the presence of Peter Spanton, you just do what you're told! I started to get used to that by about day 3.
After the exercises, the early morning session continues with lots of sparring. This is where you tend to pick up most of your bruises for the week and by the end of the week I had plenty. Unfortunately for some, it can get a little rough and some people come away with injuries. For me personally I find that I have an advantage being a small woman - the guys tend to go easy on me! I really enjoyed all the sparring and it helped boost my confidence and I'm now quite keen to have a go at it in competitions.
Mawashigeri against Jenny (Yellow Belt)
Another Mawashigeri - left leg this time against Bruce (White belt)
Only the early morning session is held in the field. The other two are held in the car park which was equally bizarre. What I found really strange was people referring to the car park as the "dojo" and bowing when they entered it for training. I didn't quite get used to that... We had two daytime sessions, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon and both were around 2 hours long.
Back home in class, we also have two hour sessions and sometimes these can be extremely exhausting and I imagined that we'd have that kind of intensity for each session at Ogwen. However, it really was no where near as tough as some people had led me to beleive it would be. The sessions typically started out with some basics and lots of combinations. One thing Peter loves to do is to give us increasingly complex combinations to test our mental acuity as well as the physical. Usually I could cope with about 6 techniques, but as the numbers started to rise towards 10-12 I struggled.
I could do them if I took it slowly but as the calls came faster and faster I'd soon get myself into a pickle. Personally I don't like to stand there like a lemon and looking confused so my personal tactic was to just try my best and keep moving so in the end I'd just make it up. I'd chuck in a gyakazuki here and a mawashigeri there and hope that I ended up in the correct position at the end. This tactic worked for a while but I was caught out on one occasion when Peter stood right in front of me to watch me. I got part way through, make a mistake and he laughed and said "It's all gone wrong now hasn't it Caroline?" I made the mistake of saying that I was just making it up at that point which resulted in a few extra pushups for me!
During the second day time session on Monday it rained the whole time and at one point I remember thinking to myself "what on earth am I doing here?". That evening I was feeling quite homesick and unsociable so I stayed in the caravan while the others went down to the club house for a drink. That was the low point of the week for me.
That night it rained constantly and I remember waking up at 7am, sitting in my room thinking that I just didn't want to go out into that wet field again. But it really wasn't that bad and I actually had some very good fights that morning and came back feeling much better.
A big focus of the day time sessions was kata. I really enjoyed this as we didn't just practice the basic moves of the kata but we spent a lot of time breaking them down and looking at how they applied to a real combat situation. This is known as bunkai and it really helps you to learn the kata so that when you perform it you start to look like you are really doing effective karate rather than just blindly going through the motions.
Practising Bunkai with Jenny, my fist is supposed to be aimed at her head!
This particular course had many junior grades. There were several white, yellow and orange belts which meant that we had many opportunities to work together and we didn't feel as though we were being neglected for the black belts which is how I felt after the kata course in December. Another plus point for me personally as that the kata that we focused on for the majority of the week was Pinan Yondan which I had only started to learn the week before. So that gave me an excellent opportinuty to get a rudimentary knowledge of it and its application.
Peter is a suberb instructor and there is nothing like getting personal tutition from the 8th Dan chief instructor. There are many times in class when I have a question and somebody perhaps one or two grades higher than me tries to answer it but isn't quite sure themselves. At Ogwen I had many opportunities to ask lots of questions of Peter himself which gave me complete confidence in the answer.
4th Dan Shawn helping me with Bunkai, not sure why I am giggling!
By Tuesday night we were all starting to feel the aches and pains. Three of us went out for a pub dinner and I had my first drop of alcohol then. That must have loosened me up a bit because by Wednesday morning most of the aches had gone and I felt raring to go again.
The weather also picked up a bit on Wednesday morning. Down in the field the mist had cleared and we saw some truly stunning views of the mountains. After the morning session I went out for a nice long walk to take in some of the scenery. I only wish I had brought my camera with me.
I don't remember exactly what we did in every session but there were plenty of memorable moments throughout the week. One particularly witty comment from Peter stood out. I was practicing bunkai with a group and I performed a technique and did a kiai. Peter walked past me at that point and said "where's your kiai?". "I did do a kiai", I protested. "That wasn't a kiai, that was a cockroaches fart!" came the response! I have a new louder kiai now!
One thing that I wanted to get out of the sparring sessions in particular was the opportunity to spar with some black belts, especially Garry. You always learn more when you are pitted against an opponent that is better than you, and that applies in any sport or game. I asked Garry on Wednesday if I could spar him but Thursday morning we didn't get the chance as we did one-on-one work with the same partner throughout the session. However, we did pick up a new form of sparring in that session - seated sparring using hands only.
So, Friday morning was my last chance and when we were told to partner up I ran over to Garry to grab him. However, we didn't spar straight away. First we did some practicing of the take-down techniques we had learnt in the day time session the day before. This was great fun as I actually got to throw my instructor on the floor several times :-) Of course, he sent me flying plenty of times too. Garry is quite a big guy and one on occasion I struggled so much to throw him over that I went with him, and landed on top of him dangerously close to the river!
Me throwing Garry, doesn't look too happy does he? :)
Garry teaching me how its really done!
We did get to do some sparring though and he taught me a lot, including some techniques for dealing with a long guard which is something I often come up against when I'm sparring with some 6 foot guy.
One Ogwen tradition that I have known about since last September is that "Ogwen Virgins" always get thrown in the river at the end of the last early morning session. Garry and I had finished sparring and at the end of the session Peter has us back down on the grass doing a few last pushups and situps just for good luck I think. The session came to a close and Peter shouted out "You know what you have to do!". Garry grabbed my foot and I suddenly had visions of being dragged in backwards by my ankles! Gill was also approaching with a menacing look on her face! Not wanting to be taken prisoner, I managed to wriggle free and then ran towards the river and just jumped in myself! Oooh chilly :)
This river isn't cold at all! RWARRR!
When I got out I was soaked through to my chest so I ran up to Gill, and gave her a soggy hug. I made sure that Garry and Scott also got some of my river water by practicing some front kicks with my water-logged shoes in their direction!
The day time sessions on Friday were relatively easy and we had the chance to do some recap work, polishing the new material we had learnt during the week. As the session drew to a close Peter geared us up for what he calls his "last blast" where he pushes you to the limit to see what kind of spirit and determination people show when tired. At the end Peter thanked us all for our attention and then asked us if we'd like to come back next year. This question had special meaning on this occasion because this year was supposed to be Peter's last as he finds it tougher now as he advances in years. In that moment he transformed from a towering Karate Master into a sweet old man who couldn't bear to give up his passion. The moment actually brought a tear to my eye.
Emotional, we clambered back into our caravan and let our hair down. Gill broke out the gin and concocted some god-awful rocket fuel which warmed our cockles! Another tradition of the week-long Ogwen course is that students who are 1st Kyu or above can request to do a dan grading here. Dan gradings at Ogwen are like no other. They are performed barefoot on the tarmac at the very end of the course. In this case, it began half an hour after the last session finished.
There were four black belts grading and it was a stunning spectacle to watch. Peter suddenly did not look like a sweet old man anymore! He pushed those guys to such lenghs that it was painful to watch. They were utterly exhausted and yet he kept pushing and pushing them. Three on on one sparring immediaely followed by Kushanku with application which is the longest kata in Higashi. The highlight for me was watching them perform defences against particular techniques. Forget your basic block followed by gyakasuki, these guys used fantastic techniques to destroy their opponents and yet, even though they were deathly tired, they managed to keep their techniques under control at all times and not hurt each other. Some of the sweeps and throws in the particular were simply amazging to watch. Results were to be announced that night in the club house.
We stumbled back to our caravan now even more wobbly than before after consuming more of Gil's rocket fuel. I'm not entirely sure how it started but we ended up in an extremely mucky banana fight! I'm sure I woke up on the sofa at one point with banana in my hair and a biscuit on my head!!
Gill's rocket fuel... before the banana fight!
The drink had gone way to my head by then and the evening at the club house was a bit of a blur. Peter was presented with a nice photo of the whole course which had been taken earlier in the week and the results of the gradings were announced and all four dan grades had passed their gradings.
The great man himself (Peter Spanton) awarding one of the well-deserved Dan Grades
For coloured belts below brown, Peter does an assessment during the week and he gives feedback on your progress to your instructor. In some cases he will actually award you a new grade. When Garry gave my license back to to me I looked at it but was so drunk by that point that I didn't really know what I was looking at. Apparently Peter had initially upgraded me from a 2nd class Yellow to first class but had later had a change of heart and upgraded me to Orange belt! This came as quite a shock as I had only had my yellow belt for two weeks and usually there is supposed to be a minimum of three months between belts.
This was a very proud moment for me and rounded off the week nicely. Overall, I had a great time, learnt a lot and I made some new friends too. I'll certainly be going back for the weekend course in September but I'll be sure to bring my camera with me!
All the girls
All the Dan grades
After a long drive down, I arrived with Scott, Garry (my instructor) and Gill at around 7pm. We dumped a few things in our room and ordered a chinese. They all wanted to crack open the beers but I decided to lay off the drink, at least initially. I got a lot of stick from the guys but they got used to it after a day or two.
From left to right: Me, Garry (Instructor), Scott, Gill
Training starts out at 7.30am with a gruelling exercise session down in a muddy field by the river Ogwen. I'm so glad that I was warned to bring waterproofs with me. On the first morning I yawned my way down to the field and the first thing Peter boomed out was "Press-up position!". I looked down at the wet, muddy grass which was covered in goose poo and thought to myself "I'm not getting down there!". Of course, when in the presence of Peter Spanton, you just do what you're told! I started to get used to that by about day 3.
After the exercises, the early morning session continues with lots of sparring. This is where you tend to pick up most of your bruises for the week and by the end of the week I had plenty. Unfortunately for some, it can get a little rough and some people come away with injuries. For me personally I find that I have an advantage being a small woman - the guys tend to go easy on me! I really enjoyed all the sparring and it helped boost my confidence and I'm now quite keen to have a go at it in competitions.
Mawashigeri against Jenny (Yellow Belt)
Another Mawashigeri - left leg this time against Bruce (White belt)Only the early morning session is held in the field. The other two are held in the car park which was equally bizarre. What I found really strange was people referring to the car park as the "dojo" and bowing when they entered it for training. I didn't quite get used to that... We had two daytime sessions, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon and both were around 2 hours long.
Back home in class, we also have two hour sessions and sometimes these can be extremely exhausting and I imagined that we'd have that kind of intensity for each session at Ogwen. However, it really was no where near as tough as some people had led me to beleive it would be. The sessions typically started out with some basics and lots of combinations. One thing Peter loves to do is to give us increasingly complex combinations to test our mental acuity as well as the physical. Usually I could cope with about 6 techniques, but as the numbers started to rise towards 10-12 I struggled.
I could do them if I took it slowly but as the calls came faster and faster I'd soon get myself into a pickle. Personally I don't like to stand there like a lemon and looking confused so my personal tactic was to just try my best and keep moving so in the end I'd just make it up. I'd chuck in a gyakazuki here and a mawashigeri there and hope that I ended up in the correct position at the end. This tactic worked for a while but I was caught out on one occasion when Peter stood right in front of me to watch me. I got part way through, make a mistake and he laughed and said "It's all gone wrong now hasn't it Caroline?" I made the mistake of saying that I was just making it up at that point which resulted in a few extra pushups for me!
During the second day time session on Monday it rained the whole time and at one point I remember thinking to myself "what on earth am I doing here?". That evening I was feeling quite homesick and unsociable so I stayed in the caravan while the others went down to the club house for a drink. That was the low point of the week for me.
That night it rained constantly and I remember waking up at 7am, sitting in my room thinking that I just didn't want to go out into that wet field again. But it really wasn't that bad and I actually had some very good fights that morning and came back feeling much better.
A big focus of the day time sessions was kata. I really enjoyed this as we didn't just practice the basic moves of the kata but we spent a lot of time breaking them down and looking at how they applied to a real combat situation. This is known as bunkai and it really helps you to learn the kata so that when you perform it you start to look like you are really doing effective karate rather than just blindly going through the motions.
Practising Bunkai with Jenny, my fist is supposed to be aimed at her head!This particular course had many junior grades. There were several white, yellow and orange belts which meant that we had many opportunities to work together and we didn't feel as though we were being neglected for the black belts which is how I felt after the kata course in December. Another plus point for me personally as that the kata that we focused on for the majority of the week was Pinan Yondan which I had only started to learn the week before. So that gave me an excellent opportinuty to get a rudimentary knowledge of it and its application.
Peter is a suberb instructor and there is nothing like getting personal tutition from the 8th Dan chief instructor. There are many times in class when I have a question and somebody perhaps one or two grades higher than me tries to answer it but isn't quite sure themselves. At Ogwen I had many opportunities to ask lots of questions of Peter himself which gave me complete confidence in the answer.
4th Dan Shawn helping me with Bunkai, not sure why I am giggling!By Tuesday night we were all starting to feel the aches and pains. Three of us went out for a pub dinner and I had my first drop of alcohol then. That must have loosened me up a bit because by Wednesday morning most of the aches had gone and I felt raring to go again.
The weather also picked up a bit on Wednesday morning. Down in the field the mist had cleared and we saw some truly stunning views of the mountains. After the morning session I went out for a nice long walk to take in some of the scenery. I only wish I had brought my camera with me.
I don't remember exactly what we did in every session but there were plenty of memorable moments throughout the week. One particularly witty comment from Peter stood out. I was practicing bunkai with a group and I performed a technique and did a kiai. Peter walked past me at that point and said "where's your kiai?". "I did do a kiai", I protested. "That wasn't a kiai, that was a cockroaches fart!" came the response! I have a new louder kiai now!
One thing that I wanted to get out of the sparring sessions in particular was the opportunity to spar with some black belts, especially Garry. You always learn more when you are pitted against an opponent that is better than you, and that applies in any sport or game. I asked Garry on Wednesday if I could spar him but Thursday morning we didn't get the chance as we did one-on-one work with the same partner throughout the session. However, we did pick up a new form of sparring in that session - seated sparring using hands only.
So, Friday morning was my last chance and when we were told to partner up I ran over to Garry to grab him. However, we didn't spar straight away. First we did some practicing of the take-down techniques we had learnt in the day time session the day before. This was great fun as I actually got to throw my instructor on the floor several times :-) Of course, he sent me flying plenty of times too. Garry is quite a big guy and one on occasion I struggled so much to throw him over that I went with him, and landed on top of him dangerously close to the river!
Me throwing Garry, doesn't look too happy does he? :)
Garry teaching me how its really done!We did get to do some sparring though and he taught me a lot, including some techniques for dealing with a long guard which is something I often come up against when I'm sparring with some 6 foot guy.
One Ogwen tradition that I have known about since last September is that "Ogwen Virgins" always get thrown in the river at the end of the last early morning session. Garry and I had finished sparring and at the end of the session Peter has us back down on the grass doing a few last pushups and situps just for good luck I think. The session came to a close and Peter shouted out "You know what you have to do!". Garry grabbed my foot and I suddenly had visions of being dragged in backwards by my ankles! Gill was also approaching with a menacing look on her face! Not wanting to be taken prisoner, I managed to wriggle free and then ran towards the river and just jumped in myself! Oooh chilly :)
This river isn't cold at all! RWARRR!When I got out I was soaked through to my chest so I ran up to Gill, and gave her a soggy hug. I made sure that Garry and Scott also got some of my river water by practicing some front kicks with my water-logged shoes in their direction!
The day time sessions on Friday were relatively easy and we had the chance to do some recap work, polishing the new material we had learnt during the week. As the session drew to a close Peter geared us up for what he calls his "last blast" where he pushes you to the limit to see what kind of spirit and determination people show when tired. At the end Peter thanked us all for our attention and then asked us if we'd like to come back next year. This question had special meaning on this occasion because this year was supposed to be Peter's last as he finds it tougher now as he advances in years. In that moment he transformed from a towering Karate Master into a sweet old man who couldn't bear to give up his passion. The moment actually brought a tear to my eye.
Emotional, we clambered back into our caravan and let our hair down. Gill broke out the gin and concocted some god-awful rocket fuel which warmed our cockles! Another tradition of the week-long Ogwen course is that students who are 1st Kyu or above can request to do a dan grading here. Dan gradings at Ogwen are like no other. They are performed barefoot on the tarmac at the very end of the course. In this case, it began half an hour after the last session finished.
There were four black belts grading and it was a stunning spectacle to watch. Peter suddenly did not look like a sweet old man anymore! He pushed those guys to such lenghs that it was painful to watch. They were utterly exhausted and yet he kept pushing and pushing them. Three on on one sparring immediaely followed by Kushanku with application which is the longest kata in Higashi. The highlight for me was watching them perform defences against particular techniques. Forget your basic block followed by gyakasuki, these guys used fantastic techniques to destroy their opponents and yet, even though they were deathly tired, they managed to keep their techniques under control at all times and not hurt each other. Some of the sweeps and throws in the particular were simply amazging to watch. Results were to be announced that night in the club house.
We stumbled back to our caravan now even more wobbly than before after consuming more of Gil's rocket fuel. I'm not entirely sure how it started but we ended up in an extremely mucky banana fight! I'm sure I woke up on the sofa at one point with banana in my hair and a biscuit on my head!!
Gill's rocket fuel... before the banana fight!The drink had gone way to my head by then and the evening at the club house was a bit of a blur. Peter was presented with a nice photo of the whole course which had been taken earlier in the week and the results of the gradings were announced and all four dan grades had passed their gradings.
The great man himself (Peter Spanton) awarding one of the well-deserved Dan GradesFor coloured belts below brown, Peter does an assessment during the week and he gives feedback on your progress to your instructor. In some cases he will actually award you a new grade. When Garry gave my license back to to me I looked at it but was so drunk by that point that I didn't really know what I was looking at. Apparently Peter had initially upgraded me from a 2nd class Yellow to first class but had later had a change of heart and upgraded me to Orange belt! This came as quite a shock as I had only had my yellow belt for two weeks and usually there is supposed to be a minimum of three months between belts.
This was a very proud moment for me and rounded off the week nicely. Overall, I had a great time, learnt a lot and I made some new friends too. I'll certainly be going back for the weekend course in September but I'll be sure to bring my camera with me!
All the girls
All the Dan gradesFriday, 4 May 2007
Yellow Belt Grading
Last Wednesday I had my grading for my yellow belt. The gradings are always held after class to make sure that you're good and tired and this week was no exception. I tried to take it easy in class but Garry had other ideas; it was one of the toughest sessions in weeks!
For the grading itself I was all on my own which was nice in a way because I knew I had all the attention and it was also really quiet and I could actually hear that 'snap' sound that your gi makes when you kick or punch hard. The downside to grading on my own was that I had no breaks. So it was a short but intense grading. I made a couple of little mistakes but felt like I had done pretty well.
I had to wait until Monday for the results. I got a second class pass - not as good as a first class but not bad I guess :) Gradings are done by a panel of three black belts and they all gave me some really useful feedback on it. The main reason that I was dropped to a second class pass was that the arm position on one of my blocking techniques was incorrect and when turning I had a tendency to end up in a very wide stance. But these are things that are easily fixed in an hour or two. The good news was that Garry said that my sharpness and focus was at the level of a purple belt! And thats the thing that usually takes years to develop so I was extremely pleased with that.
He didn't have any yellow belts in stock so he had to order me one in which he gave me on Wednesday. The damn thing is huge! I can wrap it around myself three times! Oh well :)
Next week I'm off to Ogwen Bank for a week long karate course - 5 hours training a day for 5 days. It's going to be hell but I hope I can stick it out.
For the grading itself I was all on my own which was nice in a way because I knew I had all the attention and it was also really quiet and I could actually hear that 'snap' sound that your gi makes when you kick or punch hard. The downside to grading on my own was that I had no breaks. So it was a short but intense grading. I made a couple of little mistakes but felt like I had done pretty well.
I had to wait until Monday for the results. I got a second class pass - not as good as a first class but not bad I guess :) Gradings are done by a panel of three black belts and they all gave me some really useful feedback on it. The main reason that I was dropped to a second class pass was that the arm position on one of my blocking techniques was incorrect and when turning I had a tendency to end up in a very wide stance. But these are things that are easily fixed in an hour or two. The good news was that Garry said that my sharpness and focus was at the level of a purple belt! And thats the thing that usually takes years to develop so I was extremely pleased with that.
He didn't have any yellow belts in stock so he had to order me one in which he gave me on Wednesday. The damn thing is huge! I can wrap it around myself three times! Oh well :)
Next week I'm off to Ogwen Bank for a week long karate course - 5 hours training a day for 5 days. It's going to be hell but I hope I can stick it out.
Tuesday, 24 April 2007
Upcoming Courses & Gradings
At karate we have a system to ensure that everybody has had sufficient training before they do their next grading. We each have a card which is a record of our training and at each session it is stamped. At the lower grades you need 25 stamps to be eligible, 50 stamps for the middle grades and 100 stamps at the higher grades.
When I first joined I started from scratch at white belt but I had got to orange as a teenager so it came back to me quickly. My instructor Garry said I should be able to "fast track" through the first couple of grades to get me back to where I was. Unfortunately that hasn't happened and 9 months on I'm only just eligible for my yellow belt grading.
We were due a grading a month ago but it just didn't happen. In 2 weeks time I'm going to a week long intensive karate course - 5 hours of training a day for 5 days! We get 15 stamps for that lot :-) Rumor has it that on that course you are assessed all the way through and if you have improved a lot by the end of the week you may be graded then. So I was hoping to grade a month ago and then be able to grade again on the course and then last week Garry told me that he wouldn't be holding a grading until after it.
However thats changed now. Last night we had a special class which was kind of like a mock grading. Garry has injured his back so he sat down for the duration of the class and made notes on us all. After class he came up to me and said "you're grading Wednesday". Cool huh! I doubt I'll get to grade again at the course as thats too soon but the 15 stamps will get me a long way towards it.
So today I'm skipping the gym this morning (I shoud be there now heh) and I'll take it easy at lunchtime and I'll take it is easy tomorrow as well. I've had a bit of a sore calf from running recently so I'll lay off that for a couple days so I'm as ready as I can be on Wednesday.
When I first joined I started from scratch at white belt but I had got to orange as a teenager so it came back to me quickly. My instructor Garry said I should be able to "fast track" through the first couple of grades to get me back to where I was. Unfortunately that hasn't happened and 9 months on I'm only just eligible for my yellow belt grading.
We were due a grading a month ago but it just didn't happen. In 2 weeks time I'm going to a week long intensive karate course - 5 hours of training a day for 5 days! We get 15 stamps for that lot :-) Rumor has it that on that course you are assessed all the way through and if you have improved a lot by the end of the week you may be graded then. So I was hoping to grade a month ago and then be able to grade again on the course and then last week Garry told me that he wouldn't be holding a grading until after it.
However thats changed now. Last night we had a special class which was kind of like a mock grading. Garry has injured his back so he sat down for the duration of the class and made notes on us all. After class he came up to me and said "you're grading Wednesday". Cool huh! I doubt I'll get to grade again at the course as thats too soon but the 15 stamps will get me a long way towards it.
So today I'm skipping the gym this morning (I shoud be there now heh) and I'll take it easy at lunchtime and I'll take it is easy tomorrow as well. I've had a bit of a sore calf from running recently so I'll lay off that for a couple days so I'm as ready as I can be on Wednesday.
Thursday, 21 December 2006
First Kata Course & Grading
A tradition of the Windsor Higashi club is to have a Christmas night out (for the adults) on the day of the last Kata course of the year. This was held on the 16th. Several people chose to come to the party (on a boat that sailed up and down the Thames) but didn't bother with the kata course. Seeing as I was going to be in London anyway I thought I may as well join in and see what it was all about.
To be quite honest, I didn't think all that much of it. Admittedly, the conditions were not ideal as attendance was very high - over 60 people crammed into a training hall thats much smaller than the one I train in during the week. We literally had about 2 foot square in which to move, and for kata, thats a bad thing!
As a beginner, I am taught kata just as series of karate moves and generally I have to just follow along and copy other people. Its not until a bit higher grade that you start to receive a bit more attention. Kata isn't really just a series of fancy moves for the sake of it; it's a simulation of a combat situation in which you fight off several attackers at once. Knowledge of the combat behind the kata is called 'bunkai'. Occasionally in class, I'll see the higher grades demonstrate this. One person is surrounded by several others who are all being attackers and then each move of the kata is analysed in terms of this combat. Interesting stuff.
I thought that the kata course, being a "course" would be teaching us advanced stuff like this. I thought that the kata would be picked apart and taught in detail but no - we just practised the kata one move at a time just like we do in class. The higher grades got to do some practising of a few specific moves with a partner but for us low grades, we just practised the same kata over and over and over again. Frankly, I was bored to death.
If these courses were held locally then I'd probably still attend them but the trek to London took two hours including an hour long journey on the underground (and I have a bit of a phobia of tunnels so I really dislike the tube), and the ticket was a tenner. My time and money can be better used elsewhere, at least for another few grades.
Oh well.
On the subject of gradings though, after much bugging, Garry finally decided to hold a grading on the last training day before the Christmas break on the 20th. It was originally due to be held in November but some mixups with the venue led to continued delays and it was starting to look like I was going to have to wait until January.
I was really eager to grade because I've done all this early stuff before. I've been training for four months now so I was definately ready for it. The grading was a breeze, and for me, really rather short. For 8th Kyu all that is required are the basic punches (front and reverse), the four basic blocks and a front kick. That's it!
There were two 8th Kyu's going for their yellow belt and for their grading they did the same stuff as me, plus a roundhouse kick (mawashi gaeri) and the first kata, Pinan Nidan. I'm fairly confident I can also do this stuff well so I'll be wanting to grade again at the earliest opportunity.
I received a first class pass which I am very pleased with. I just hope I can continue that standard in the future. I might be impatient when it comes to gradings but deep down I would rather take my time and get a good pass each time than to rush through them and scrape by with a 3rd class pass.
I didn't have any nerves at all. In fact I got a real buzz out of it - I was disappointed that there weren't more people watching! I think some of thoe other people grading were nervous. But all was good, everybody passed in the end!
Now I gotta wait until January 10th before I can train again! That's three weeks, UGH!
To be quite honest, I didn't think all that much of it. Admittedly, the conditions were not ideal as attendance was very high - over 60 people crammed into a training hall thats much smaller than the one I train in during the week. We literally had about 2 foot square in which to move, and for kata, thats a bad thing!
As a beginner, I am taught kata just as series of karate moves and generally I have to just follow along and copy other people. Its not until a bit higher grade that you start to receive a bit more attention. Kata isn't really just a series of fancy moves for the sake of it; it's a simulation of a combat situation in which you fight off several attackers at once. Knowledge of the combat behind the kata is called 'bunkai'. Occasionally in class, I'll see the higher grades demonstrate this. One person is surrounded by several others who are all being attackers and then each move of the kata is analysed in terms of this combat. Interesting stuff.
I thought that the kata course, being a "course" would be teaching us advanced stuff like this. I thought that the kata would be picked apart and taught in detail but no - we just practised the kata one move at a time just like we do in class. The higher grades got to do some practising of a few specific moves with a partner but for us low grades, we just practised the same kata over and over and over again. Frankly, I was bored to death.
If these courses were held locally then I'd probably still attend them but the trek to London took two hours including an hour long journey on the underground (and I have a bit of a phobia of tunnels so I really dislike the tube), and the ticket was a tenner. My time and money can be better used elsewhere, at least for another few grades.
Oh well.
On the subject of gradings though, after much bugging, Garry finally decided to hold a grading on the last training day before the Christmas break on the 20th. It was originally due to be held in November but some mixups with the venue led to continued delays and it was starting to look like I was going to have to wait until January.
I was really eager to grade because I've done all this early stuff before. I've been training for four months now so I was definately ready for it. The grading was a breeze, and for me, really rather short. For 8th Kyu all that is required are the basic punches (front and reverse), the four basic blocks and a front kick. That's it!
There were two 8th Kyu's going for their yellow belt and for their grading they did the same stuff as me, plus a roundhouse kick (mawashi gaeri) and the first kata, Pinan Nidan. I'm fairly confident I can also do this stuff well so I'll be wanting to grade again at the earliest opportunity.
I received a first class pass which I am very pleased with. I just hope I can continue that standard in the future. I might be impatient when it comes to gradings but deep down I would rather take my time and get a good pass each time than to rush through them and scrape by with a 3rd class pass.
I didn't have any nerves at all. In fact I got a real buzz out of it - I was disappointed that there weren't more people watching! I think some of thoe other people grading were nervous. But all was good, everybody passed in the end!
Now I gotta wait until January 10th before I can train again! That's three weeks, UGH!
Friday, 17 November 2006
Don't Beat Yourself Up!
Some people just beat themselves up a lot. They are never happy with their performance and always think they should be doing better or working harder. In last nights karate class, I took this 'beating oneself up' thing a little too far and actually punched myself in the face!
You may well be wondering how on earth one can achieve that given the techniques available at white belt...
Well let me enlighten you! Pinan Shodan, towards the end of the kata when you are working your way towards the back of the hall. You've turned to do a soto uke, and then followed with a front kick and reverse punch with the left hand. You then take that left hand and do another soto uku with it. Your arm starts off in a horizontal position perpendicular to your body and to do a jodan soto uke all you need to do is rotate the forearm upwards, perpendicular to the body. I managed to rotate my arm backwards instead of upwards thus delivering a nice backfist to my right eye!
Unfortunately for me, I was kinda 'going for it' in this particular kata so I really spanked myself quite hard! It knocked me for six a bit and my eyes went all squiffy for a few minutes. The next morning I found a nice bruise just below my eyebrow :-)
It was a good class last night. Only three students turned up! So we got lots of personal attention from Garry and spent the entire session concentrating on Pinan Nidan and Shodan. I learned a lot, but the most important thing I learned - don't beat yourself up!
You may well be wondering how on earth one can achieve that given the techniques available at white belt...
Well let me enlighten you! Pinan Shodan, towards the end of the kata when you are working your way towards the back of the hall. You've turned to do a soto uke, and then followed with a front kick and reverse punch with the left hand. You then take that left hand and do another soto uku with it. Your arm starts off in a horizontal position perpendicular to your body and to do a jodan soto uke all you need to do is rotate the forearm upwards, perpendicular to the body. I managed to rotate my arm backwards instead of upwards thus delivering a nice backfist to my right eye!
Unfortunately for me, I was kinda 'going for it' in this particular kata so I really spanked myself quite hard! It knocked me for six a bit and my eyes went all squiffy for a few minutes. The next morning I found a nice bruise just below my eyebrow :-)
It was a good class last night. Only three students turned up! So we got lots of personal attention from Garry and spent the entire session concentrating on Pinan Nidan and Shodan. I learned a lot, but the most important thing I learned - don't beat yourself up!
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