Sunday 25.9.16: I was planning a couple of events that would take up most of the week, but had to cancel them because of some work on an appartment I'm going to move into But in the end I did find time for the irregular Sunday technical karate training. 19:10-20:45 - Karate class: - Stretching - San Dan Gi Ichi - San Dan Gi Ni - Gekisai Dai Ichi kata We did only these, we spent a bit of time with them. Going mostly slowly and on count sensei checking even details on our techniques. I didn't get any corrections for the San Dan Gis, but sensei pointed a lot of things we generally or each of us in particular need to work on. Which was great No Kobudo class today, as the instructor is away, but he gave us a homework to practise. So me and a friend brought our staffs and practised at least the techniqes we've learned. Most of the time we worked on rotating the staff. My friend is significanly better with it, so I had to copy him before I remembered how to do some stuff. He also came up with funny and cool ideas to practise, like alternating the styles of rotation, while changing the bo from hand to hand behind my back. I was able to do something, too, with his instruction! I also progressed a lot with the rotating the bo in a figure of "8". I really don't know what I changed, but I suddenly was able to do it really fast and well. Maybe because I loosened my grip and wrists, or maybe not. I don't know what I did differently, but it suddenly worked and at times I felt it worked really really well I learned to do it in reverse easily, too and when then I tightened the grip, the bo made the nice whooshing sounds. But I still hit my legs several time and since I was able to rotate the bo fast, I was also more scared I'd 'kill' myself with it So I found the plastic helmet used at some sports tournaments and put it on to be able to practise without worries. I did the right thing. I hit myself at least three times and the helmet helped immensely! I was happy sensei wasn't there, but my treacherous friend excused himself for a moment, then called me to the entrance with a serious face, then quickly took a photo of me. I WILL get my revenge :Angry: Anyway I'm really happy with today's practise, although we didn'd do the homework whole.. Practise time: around 20:50 to 21:45/22:00-ish And before leaving, we ran twice through Shisochin and Sanseru katas (this was probably till 22:00).
I missed Monday training - had work to do. Tuesday 27.9.16: A friend who teaches the Mini class this year was sick (as a lot of people are these days) and asked me if I could come instead. I did make some time. There were four kids today, only one from last year, and a teenage brother of one of them, who was sent by his mum to assist me. I prepared some games and activities to do. It was good, but hard as well, these kids just have a tendency to not listen, constantly shout something and do whatever I don't want them to I figured I don't really miss teaching the mini class as much as I thought I did Don't get me wrong, the kids are cute and great, it's just difficult to work with them. Not even games interest them if they just run around in circles 18:30-19:40 - Advanced class: The majority of people (3:2) including sensei didn't feel well, and they brought up why not go for a beerinstead of training. We didn't, but the training was cut shorter. We played fight games at the beginning (some of which I just did with the kids ): - stepping on feet of the partner (3 rounds) - pushing them back to back while sitting - pushing with feet while sitting and facing each other - I never did this before and at least for me and my partner it turned into whatever, except for what sensei expected - Untying each other's belts - a lot of fun as usual, I tried to push my partner's face away with my foot, but got bitten in the big toe instead + a little bit of work-out in between - All of the games after the first one were only with one round. There were two guys and two girls, so we made pairs by gender - Seiyunchin kata around 4 times - All Seiyunchin bunkai - twice for each side - 1 final Seiyunchin - final belly work-out
19:00-20:30 - Beginner class: Looks like everyone is ill or what, so only five people today + sensei. - stretching - Kihon - for the first grading: tsuki, uraken uchi (various types), mae hijiate, shuto uchi, hiza geri, mae geri, mawashi geri, ashi barai + tsuki, mae hijiate, mae geri, mawashi geri practised in pairs on pads - in between the techniques, we were told to do 10 exercises of our choice, so I did: 3x10 push-ups, 2x10 crunches, 2x10 squats and 2x10 V-ups - final work-out: 240 calf raises, 120 half sit-ups At the beginning sensei asked if I trained Shisochin by myself since he taught us in June and implied I will be practising today. However, we all did kihon and the next advanced class was unfortunately canceled again. But since I was the only advanced student there, it's not like I thought the class would really happen Too bad. Anyway, tommorrow we are going to a weekend seminar in Slovakia, so I should get plenty of training
Friday 30.9.16: We were planning to go to a seminar from the dojo at a specific time, but sensei came quite a bit later because of work, so I used the time to borrow a friend's bo and practise what we learned in the three kobudo classes for an hour. Ipractised especially the various rotations, "8s", turning body around while keeping the bo in rotation, turning myself around while doing the 8 motion and changing the direction of the rotation and combining the rotating techniques. I can see my improvement clearly, which I'm really happy about! I can do all the stuff much faster and figured out some of the transitions. I didn't hit myself as many times, but I again hit my head with the bo and the sport hurt even now after three days... Good thing sensei didn't see me At one time I hit my leg and the bo left my hands right toward one of the broken mirrors. It's broken anyway, but this could possibly break the upper half, as one end of the bo hit the floor and the other was up and going straight for a mirror. I jumped after it and luckily caught it at the last moment, with the bo being at a 20cm distance from the mirror. Kobudo can apparently be a real adrenaline sport I also practised all the five techniques from the first kihon (= hojo undo) set.
Slovakian Gasshuku in Trenčín 30.9.-2.10. 2016 The weekend karate seminar with sensei Paul and sensei Peter, both holders of 7th dan from EGKA - British branch of IOGKF. They also brought two other karateka's who participated in the seminar and sensei Paul's student Stephan with 3rd dan, who was also teaching, which was great as we could do smaller groups. There were around 17 adult karatekas from the Czech Republic + a few kids, so we made a group of over 20. There was also a group from Poland, one visitor from Germany and of course, Slovakians. All together around 60 people perhaps (not counting children who had a separate group). All the senseis are fun people and great teachers and the seminar was simply awesome. Tiring, but awesome. Our car left in the evening from our dojo and only ariver half past midnight, so we sort of missed the Friday evening training. But we knew we would. Unfortunately because of that, us kyu grades missed the hojo undo block, that looked really really difficult/exhausting, but, or maybe that's why, I regret if a bit. SATURDAY 1.10.: 9:00-10:30 - sensei Paul: Junbi Undo with sensei Paul and after dividing into groups, us kyu grades were working with sensei Paul on Gekisai Dai Ichi and Gekisai Dai Ni katas. We started normally with GKI, then did the kata slowly, with right, then left hand behind our back, then in the mirror side and finallz normallz and full power. We then did bunkai - not the traditional ones, but some sensei Paul showed as also possible, though quite different applications. We tried some and then he showed us more just to show us how to think about techniques. We continued with GKN, not in so much detail and also with some special bunkai. 10:40-12:00 - sensei Stephan: - Kakie (sticky hands) and locks training - first the several types of kakie in pairs or a group of three in our case. Sensei then showed us several locks and we had a bit of time to try them quickly. Unfortunately I can't even remember how many were showed, but there were quite a few. There was some wrist lock where you prop the partner's elbow on your chest and push their hand/wrist down that would cause them to go down, too. I kind of didn't feel like going down and with a friend we were trying to figure out what was wrong. Sensei just came around so we asked. He said that there are people with flexible wrists, on whom this just doesn't work. He took my arm to try, too, with the pretty much same effect, then left with: "There's always this one person..." (Great, I just love being "this one person" ) For the next lock and takedown, he mentioned that it may as well not work on everyone, something about people who are able to support their weight with the wrists. I didn't completely understand this bit, so I'm at least noting it down for now. One of my wrists hurts me a bit lately, so I was a little worried, but in the end this technique didn't work either. 12:10-15:00 with one break in the middle - sensei Peter: Our kyu group was taken from the big gym downstairs to a dojo with tatami. The idea was to do pads and perhaps some hojo undo, but there were a lot of people and not enough equipment, so we did something different. Something that didn't feel more relaxing at all I discovered sensei Peter, although being in his mid sixties is a tough and strong man wouldn't let us off easy without enough sweat. We started with a rather innocent looking stretching/Junbi Undo which slowly transformed into 50 reverse cycling circles (with legs - held above floor and moving in a circle, kicking out with heels), 50 swinging legs up and down while lying (like scissors), 50 "half" sit-ups. Then the worst thing of all came. We made pairs, where one person got on their hands and knees, making stand for the other's toes, who used only those to support him/herself for knuckle pushups. Doing 20 of those was bad enough, but then came another 15 and then 10. My back couldn't hold up and for the last ten my arms were more like just twitching instead of really bending too much I really really need to change this! In those pairs sensei had one person jump over the bent partner (splitting legs) and crowling back in between their's legs. 20 times! Unbelievable 20 times! My partner was a friend not a whole head taller, but I still had a hard time jumbing over him, especially without a space to run before. At least the crowl was easy, since I didn't have to really "crawl" But I was exhausted as hell and just directed ugly looks to all those cheaters who pretended sensei wanted us to do only 10 reps, each. So in the end only me and a pair where sensei himself was one of the partners were continuing. And I just don't believe all those people could finish like at least 7 or 10 jumps earlier then us! :woo: We worked on some techniques for a little while, before we made two lines of people lying on the lenght of the dojo and making team races of jumping over lying people and then crawling under them kneeling. We won the fist and our punishment was to be 10, but sensei changed it for 20 push-ups on count. We lost the second and that damned second team gave us 20 burpees in return! Luckily not on count and we were all exhausted and sensei stopped it when I was at the tenth one. Phew... I really really don't remember if we did something technical in between, but I don't really even think so D: The other half of the training was about ground fighting and related things. I knew sensei Peter is good at this stuff, so it wasn't surprising in the least. He showed us a technique we practised in pairs and two or three alternatives of how to deal with that situation. Then we did some lock's/joint manipulation and related stuff. I'm so happy I wasn't picked as sensei's partner to demonstrate the techniques on. Those poor guys suffered their share enduring the painful stimuli sensei demonstrated for self defence On of the locks I discovered I had real trouble with - couldn't do. I'm not sure if it's about my (wrist?) strenght, which I probably don't have any or that I'm missing something. I didn't figure out how to do it, nor did the few people I asked later. I only managed to do it on another woman.... I need to find out! I'll be asking my sensei next. We also practised various breakfalls, including mae and ushiro ukemi, under sensei's watch. I was so happy our senseis practise this with us from time to time, because we knew what to do. At the end of the class, sensei pressured us a bit with Gekisai Dai Ichi kata, repeating the usual "mo ichi do!" (= one more time) time and time again, making us watch each other and completely synchronize our movements. When we left the dojo, the mirrors were all completely steamed wth drops of whatever liquid running down on them. Even though the main translater sneakily ran to open the tiny windows when sensei wasn't looking At the end of today's seminar, there was a stretching, which I really appreciated. I managed to stretch quite far for a side split - almost to a complete one. Then diwn with the body in the middle. I heard some rustle next to me and looked up only to notice sensei's feet just before me and his voice: "Hey, don't show off!" After shower and food and discussion among our group about next year's gasshuku again, we went to Sayonara party. There wasn't much space so we were sort of separated at first, but senseis came to visit and when people left, we joined them at their table. These are the senseis we knew personally, I spent some time with them when they visited Prague. They are a fun bunch laughing at the stupidest things We spent the evening also sharing English, Czech, Slovakian and Polish songs. It was great SUNDAY 2.10.16: cca 9:30-10:00: The worst thing possible happened, sensei Peter led the Junbi Undo. I really don't remember to much aout stretching, but he repeated the same routine from yesterday: 50 reverse cycling circles, 50 swinging legs up and down while lying (like scissors), 50 "half" sit-ups and he added 50 push ups. We were all sore from yesterday and I had to pause after 25 and then another maybe three times, being pretty much the last one to finish. I so don't believe all of them did 50! I just don't! :woo: cca 10:00-10:40? - sensei Stephan: Kyu grades group - practising Gekisai Dai Ichi with several different point of view - good and similar to one class we had in Okinawa, then Gekisai Dai Ni. Then we moved onto practising Rensoku bunkai kumite (chokusen) for both Gekisai Dai Ichi and Ni. cca 10:45?-12:00 - sensei Peter: Again a very tiring block under sensei's teaching. We made a group of beginners up to Nidan. Sensei announced "shugo" - to line up regularly to make enough space an in grade order. The black belts were in the very back and somehow it took an awfully long time for them to line at the front and for the brown belts, too. Then, the rest of us had to move lines according to them and it really did take awfully long. As a punishment, sensei announced: "On your fists!" Knuckle push-ups this time on a hard floor and on count, then going down and up on a count of three - something nearly impossible and very hard for me. And: "Don't put your knees on the floor!" etc. was sounding almost all the time. When we finished, it still took too long, so this punishment came again at least two more times! :cry: I just had to curse silently.... Then the block apeared to be Sanchin block! We did the kata 3 times, then sensei explained something, we did some exercise and tried again. For this kata sensei came to me and spent the latter half of the kata correcting me. Some things he pointed out we do differently in our dojo, but some things helped me to realise some things. I realized that with sensei's corrections I was the last to finish. I really really wouldn't want for people to watch my Sanchin. Hopefully it didn't last too long. :vanish: I really couldn't breathe with much strenght this time, although I did keep my muscles as tight as I could. Sensei didn't appear to check or at least comment on my breathing, though. We then made pairs to check each other for a tightened "hara", that has to be tightened most of the time. We had to walk like that and talk at the same time. Sensei was checking me as I could feel my face going red fromthe effort and lack of oxygen, too. But it was a thing I should learn. When I thought sensei left and my partner was checking me, suddenly a groin kick came from behind to check my Sanchin posture. It didn't go through, luckily, at least half of the reason being my fat thighs! In the pairs then we sat back to back, interlocked elbows and had to stand up. My partner was a huge man and he got a cramp after the first attempt and sensei told him to stop it and was my partner himself. No lacking for me, indeed! He them dragged me, flying behind him to the centre to show and explain things. We then did some work-out in bigger groups. And 20 more (knuckle) push-ups :cry: And the final was with all the people together, standing in shiko-dachi, doing probably around 250 tsuki on count with a lot of kiai, too. Then each line from "shugo" made a team (one of which I was the leading person of - first in line, which I was really "happy" about) :vanish: It was about a relay race where a person runs to the first line and back, second and back and third and back on the terrible slippery floor. Starting me and 4 men, I wasn't happy about how conspicuously I was going to lose, but I think surprisingly I wasn't the last one and I heard someone might have also been cheating a bit, too! Looks like I wasn't the only one at the end of my energy reserves. Then we had to line back into "shugo". When a friend and I had to change lines and run accross the gym to the end of the line in front of us, we ran like our lives depended on it, with the like-minded people laughing at us, understanding we can feel sensei Peter's gaze counting the time before he'd punish us all with he hellish push-ups again! After the end we told our goodbyes to senseis. Sensei Paul also gifted me their cloth bag with their club's symbol embroidered on it. The one I always envied my sensei . Really nice. We already left our accomodation in the morning and wanted to shower. Unfortunately, the only showers were in the men's changing room, so we hurried our guys to go shower quickly. Sensei reminded me there are still chi-ishis from our dojo we brought in the gym. I told him sure, we'll bring them, you go shower! When I asked another of our group's girls - the only female sensei of ours - if she would help, she stopped, asking "And why won't the guys bring them, when WE shower?" It was such a brilliant idea! :happy: I wonder why it didn't occur to me? :thinking: But of course, sensei reminded me she's already been married for three weeks -> she knows her stuff XD To sum it up, it was a terrific seminar, even surpassing my expectations for sure!
Monday: Had to miss training, unfortunately Tuesday 4.10.16: 18:30-20:00 - Advanced class: - Gekisai Dai Ichi kata with modifications (3x and 5x repeat each technique) for warm-up - Gekisai Dai Ichi kata on the spot, withought steps - Renzoku kumite (kata in line) - GKI - attacker and defender on the spot - the same in pairs on the spot - then normal Renzoku using feet, too - For the next half an hour we did kihon according to the syllabus - one combination of three techniques needed for a 5th kyu grading, San Dan Gi San that has techniques/combinations for 4th kyu and a combination for 3rd kyu (my next grading) - starting with kuri uke - a block I have been showed maybe only a couple of times in kihon, although a bit modified kuri uke can be found n Seiynchin kata - The last half hour was spent practising a different version on GKI - something like a kata in line, similar to Renzoku, but the techniques/bunkai in different order. More like bunkai in one go. Practising in pairs. It's been a while since we've done this
Wednesday 5.10.16¨: Although I'm not a student anymore, the new semester just started and I "infoltrated" the karate class there again. Just for training. Extra training is extra training, you know! And this is actually where I started with karate, myself, exactly three years ago. So this will be my seventh semester if I'll be able to make time for it 18:00-19:30 - Beginner uni class: Again a class of mostly girls, with only two guys out of 15 people. Our faculty is just like that... There was some introduction which took about half of the lesson. Then we played the usual game of tag, Junbi Undo, sensei taught hiza geri, sayu = footwork and tsuki + hijiate. We had a tiny bit of extra time so we did 20 jumping squats in a circle with arms on our neighbor's shoulders.
Thursday 6.10.16: 19:10-20:40 - Beginner karate class: I came a bit late, but apparently the class didn't start before. Not sure if they were waiting for me and one other guy to get changed :Angel: - Light sparring: 3 round using and attacking only legs, then using legs and shoulders, then only punches to the stomach, then whatever, in each category we had 3 rounds, so 12 short rounds altogether. - Ten of us took the 9 stones and a 4 kg medicine ball and formed a circle. - With the stone we first lifted it up in stretched arms while sinking into shiko dachi 10x, then shiko dachi + arms with stone to the front 10x, then lunge into zenkutsu dachi + stone to the front, also 10x - After that we practised one or a series of blocks before we moved to the left to another stone and repeated the whole thing. There were 10 spots, so all the exercises with stones were done 100x. Their weight, judgng from the 4 kg ball ranged from around 2 kg to about 6 kg. The heavier were in majority and they were terrible, their irregular shape adding to my misery - In the circle standing in shiko dachi each of us counted to ten and we were handing each other 5 stones on the count - Again circle, holding stone up (close to the chest) and 10x mae geri, then changing spot and stone - 10x. - Going through the same Thursday combination of strikes and techniques 20:45-21:15 - Advanced class (finally!): - finally we had an advanced class, although not too long. - Went through Seiyunchin cca 3 times + its bunkai - once for each side
National Seminar in Sedlčany 8.10.16 There's an unwritten agreement in our association that each of the 6 dojos organizes at least one event a year. The big clubs like ours and the southern dojo take care of the biggest actions and most of them, while the other small dojos usually book a gym and invite especially our four 3rd to 5th dan senseis to teach a seminar. Today was a premiere for the club in Sedlčany. Three of the four senseis came and people from four clubs, altogether around 25 people. Which is not too much, but still quite ok. The organizing fojo instructor had special plans for the warm up, that was handed over to her sister. We did a little bit of stretching and my first tabata training: 9:45-10:20 - Stretching and Tabata: - The tabata was 4 sets of 8 exercises (for 20 s, with a 10s break). One round therefore lasted 4 minutes + 1 minute (I think?) break => 20 minutes tabata. Each exercise (32 altogether) was different. We sweated quite a bit, but it didn't feel as bad as I thought it would. I probably didn't put enough effort in, probably because there were still 3,5 hours of seminar before us. But I did follow the leader's pace. cca 10:25-11:00 - Kihon block: Senseis were off during the tabata to review each other's kata as usual and therefore came to "warm us up" with kihon :cry:. Maybe 22 different techniques each 10x, some 30x, leaving us tired. If we didn't kiai enough or where sensei thought we should, it would be 10 push-ups for us. Which was at least 5 times. 11:05-11:55 - Kihon combiantions: Our sensei just arrived late and had his block now. We quite swiftly went through the combination we were practising on the Thursday's lately and then made it against an opponent, or rather, three - group drill. Second part was about kiks in groups. Kicking one person in a stuffed vest. We did 4x2 mae, mawashi, ushiro and yoko geri on each side + breakfall and get up each time (16x - weird, it felt like much more than that. Maybe we just took more time because o synchronizing ourselves and figuring the system out a bit...). 12:10-12:50 - Kata block: We finally made groups by grades, we were a group of six people ranging from 5th kyu to 1st dan. Sensei practised Seiyunchin with us, pointed out our weak points and help us drill some things. We could have gone through the whole kata maybe 6 or seven times + the drills and the horse and cat stances everywhere leaved especially my legs really tired. 12:55-13:50 - Bunkai block: This one was longer, because originally we should have had three blocks - one with each sensei, but the first one lasted a bit longer, so one block was canceled. For us it was a block with our dojo's sensei, so we didn't miss much. We have classes with him often, after all For now we did bunkai - for Seiyunchin. We only had time to practise and review up to the sixth one - meaning the first half of them. 13:50-14:05 - Demonstration: In the remaining bit of time, each of the three groups (beginners, intermediate, advanced) demonstrated the kata they were just practising and the bunkai, too, if they did them. After the seminar we went to a much appreciated lunch, discused a little about the upcoming Gasshuku again and went our ways. This was nice, since the town of Sedlčany is only about an hour's drive from Prague
Sunday - I organized, but in the end had to miss another kobudo class I had such a bad day.... Monday 10.10.16 Sensei called in the morning that he is somewhere and can't make it to his karate class for kids at a school a bit out of Prague. I promised I'll take it for him. I arrived just on time (ok, a tiny bit late) and when going to the gym the first thing I saw was a stand with printed six pictures I drew. There was the travelling art exhibition of last year's Science is Beautiful contest that our faculty organizes every year. For the past few years and last year as well, my pictures won the Scientific Illustration category, and here they were! On a completey random, international and private school in a village/town somewhere. The world really is so small sometimes! Anyway, I had my 45 minutes with the 14 kids running and screaming in the gym, where I also almost screamed my voice out in order for them to hear me. We didn't do much karate, but several running games, most of which they had trouble understanding, though they were rather simple and I dempnstrated. But there were always some not paying attention The time flew by, the lesson was really short. From there I drove straight to the dojo, which is much closer than my home, taking my home office with me. 18:30-20:00 - Beginner karate class: - Game of tag - with hands, then legs - Junbi Undo - Partner drills - practising hitting a target (an obi one of the pair holds straight as a part of work-out) with various strikes: yokomen and normal (straight) uraken uchi, tsuki, kagi tsuki, ura tsuki, mawashi tsuki, kin geri, shuto uchi, haito uchi - In the meantime when we waited for the last pair: 2x10 push-ups, 10 and 20 crunches, 10 normal and 10 shiko-dachi squats, 10 burpees, 10 mountain climbers and not sure if something else. - We also practised avoiding the belt when one sweeps it at our head's level and at the feet - duck and jump - The last exercise was that the partner with the obi holds it in different ways suggesting possible strikes, the other partner hits it however they like until the first one gives a signal and sweeps the obi, so the other has to duck, then jump over it. Sensei took me to demostrate what he wanted us to do. He held the belt, I was hitting it, when, without prior explanation, he shouted and quickly swept the obi at my head. He was fairly close, though, so I didn't react in time and I was hit, not even with the obi but with sensei's hand straight to the head. It wasn't such a terrible blow, but it caught me by surprise nad it wasn't extremely light either, so i fell on my butt, when sensei shouted: "Up, up, quickly!" and I got even hit with the obi wehn sensei was sweepint my feet XD - 95 "half" sit-ups I didn't go to the self-defence class today, although it looked fun, because I had to finish the work I didn't do when taking sensei's training.
Tuesday 11.10.16: Three of us + sensei went to a hospital near the dojo to visit our friend who has been hospitalised again with her appendix She is so optimistic that she always looks fine, although she isn't. We made it for training just in time. 18:30-20:00 - Advanced class: - two round of untying partner's belt for a warm-up - stretching - various exercises to practise Renzoku kumite (kata in line) - in pairs, on the spot, with eyes closed, a competition (who makes a mistake or finishes last does push-ups - I did perhaps around 40-50?), facing each othr doing the same thing (defender/attacker) or the opposite etc. - partner drills - attacker always started with a given attack, defender either moved away or blocked and continued with at least 2 or 3 different strikes - final belly work-out Today's class was a bit relaxed as we had some additional stretching and chatting, too.
Wednesday 12.10.16: I spent the afternoon in a place without heating, so I did about 2x10 jumping squats and push-ups to warm myself up and also went through Seiyunchin, Shisochin and Sanseru katas once 18:00-19:30 - Beginner class at uni: - some fighting (pushing/pulling competitions) for a warm-up - Junbi Undo + a bit of work-out as a part of it - Learning and practising hiza geri and tsuki - and that was about it, I think? The Junbi Undo took long, sensei was explaining and teaching some of the specific exercises that are a part of it
Thursday 13:10.16: 19:00 - cca 20:45 - Beginner karate class: - Wow, it hasn't happened in a while, especially when there was quite a lot of people in class, that there were actually more men than women (5:3)! - Partner drills of combinations or entering o-soto gari, knee kicks, some kicking each other (lightly) and so on - Stretching - Kihon - we made 4 groups: 1. two beginners, 2. yellow belt, 3. green belt, 4. us blue belts and one brown. Sensei always showed technique to practise to each group. We usually got all the techniques for the three groups combined in one longer combination. It was confusing at times, especially when sensei had us practise difficult parts of the kata each group was working on. Except for us at first, as we again got all the techniques from the previous groups. Meaning we started with a combination that was the same for Gekisai Dai Ichi and Ni katas and continued with a combination from Saifa. A combination, that's only done to one side in the kata. So when doing the mirror side, we struggled somewhat, to a point that I paid so much attention to the "new" mirror version, that I included a mirrored part into the original. Confusing, but in the end, I made it - 10 push-ups between exercises (altogether maybe 50-60 push-ups) - Each belt group demonstrated their kata to the others (Seiyunchin for me) and got advise from sensei. I was demonstrating with a friend and wanted to keep pace with him, but he was too fast for me and I had trouble really doing the kata well as I was concentrating on useless things. Not my best kata, definitely, but what sensei told us: To differentiate between the "go" and "ju" of the kata - keep the flow better, still would be the right correction without a doubt. Again, no advanced training today, becasue there will be extra trainings in the weekend
Dojo Day First dojo day of this season, one after a long time. 9:00-10:40 - Kihon + kihon ido training: ...as a preparation for the nearest grading. Like on Thursday we made a square, each side was a group by grades. We were the highest one - 4th kyu to 1st dan. Each of the four groups always got a technique to do on sensei's count, we usually got a combination of the techniques of all the other groups, some wuite difficult for coordination (at least for me) if done quickly. As an example, one combination on one count was a (right) nukite tsuki, (left) nukite tsuki, hiki uke, hiki uke, tora guchi, tora guchi. Quite a few of combinations like these. And toward the end, we got a normal combintion from syllabus. Then there was a kihon ido block, done in two groups when one was resting (because of lack of space) while the other one was doing combinations walking across the dojo. Usually from the syllabus. As our more advanced group had more techniques, only we were practising towards the very end. 11:40 - 13:30 - 108 Saifa! Another 108 kata, after a while again. Sensei plans to do all the kata before the end of year, this year as well, but we're still at Saifa only. Next month there's Seiyunchin planned, the only kata sensei didn't do 108x in a row, either. I am so, so very much scared of that I mean, Saifa is still quite ok, but I didn't fare well today. Somehow I didn't fell good doing the kata, felt clumsy, etc. At about 40th, I started to be really hungry (we planned to start earlier but waited for a friend who didn't arrived in the end...), at around 70, everyone started going quite quickly, speeding the pace of the kata. I didn't feel well going so fast, but had to keep pace with them. Sensei always tells us to slow down out kata, so I usually try, but as they got into the mode, I suppose, they went just really quick. About ten kata later, my ears started to get blocked (if that's the word, which was really uncomfortable especially when it was my time to shout the etiquette, or shout kiai) and I got thirsty. For the last 20 kata I prayed we would finish already... Really, I didn't have a very good feeling about it today. After the 108 we went for a lunch to a very nice chinese restaurant we always go to. expecting to start the next training - "Fight club" - bags, sparring, drills etc. soon. I knew it was a bad idea as soon as I saw the schedule, but none of us felt like we can do it, especially afte the big lunch. We somehow sat in the restaurant, already out of drinks and none of us was brave enough to get up and we were generally fighting sleep. In the end, we took vote who wants the next training, and "unfortunately", only one of us was in favor (out of six). So it was somehow decided we would go for an ice cream instead Really now, it's difficult to do our best on an exhausting training following other exhausting trainings and after lunch even...
Sunday 16.10.16: 19:10 - 21:15 - Kobudo class: I worried I could fall behind as I heard they were doing quite a lot of new stuff last week, but luckily today we repeated/learned the same After practising some rotating of the bo, we were taught kumibo (ichi). Basically a sequence of three strikes and three blocks + strike done in pairs - something a bit similar to San Dan Gi. There were five types, each one where the attacker used three strikes we learned in Hojo Undo ichi. So we could put them int practise. It was cool and fun at times and the two hours passed by really quick Sensei showed us some other possibilities of exercises or more advanced forms of this type of kumibo. EDIT: This class again I was as clumsy as usual, my bo was flying accross the dojo in all directions after I hit myself with it and knocked it out of my hands as a result repeatedly. A friend standing before me was prepared for everything that would come his way, though, and immediately jumped up when he saw my bo flying towards his legs from behind thanks to the mirror He dodged skillfully, but because of that my staff rolled right at senseis feet with a loud noise as it hit the floor (loud enough that my ears were ringing from it). Sensei probably gave me a weird look as usual and told me to at least learn to pick it up with my feet. I tried then and it worked, sort of, but he taught us a few tips on how to do it better and nicer Until I rolled it on my foot, kicked it up, only too high and too far so the staff headed in sensei's direction again (only through the air this time), but I managed to run after it and catch it in time XD I'm a hopeless case Hmm, 6 training days this week, not bad!
Monday 17.10.16: 18:30 - 20:00 - Beginner karate class: Sensei probablz wanted to compensate us for the canceled Fight Club and prepared a kumite training for us today. - We started a few round sitting face to face with a partner and trying to slap him with either one r both hands. Then the same while standing and not moving feet and moved onto sevaral similar drills. - I partnered with sensei for a drill when we stand in heiko dachi on the spot and try to punch the partner's belly. Sensei had a longer reach and didn't stay completely planted as he tried to move backwards instinctively. I then tried to move a little bit forward to be able to reach him. I had to bend a bit and got hit in a tooth with sensei's knuckle when he was blocking. Ouch. - Then we put on gloves and sensei called me to him once again. I tried to slip away, but to no awail. He told me to not worry, this will be without contact. The drill was that one person move the front foot forward and goes with a front head punch, the other person blocks it from the inside and it's their turn to punch. Light contact obviously permitted. So I basically got pretty much all the punches with few exceptions into my nose Light contact, but still contact, sensei is such a liar! His strategy was often to attack immediately after my attack. Fast enough that I didn't have time to move back to avoid his longer reach. I grew irritated with myself being to slow and a bit afraid to actually move in enough so that I can actually reach sensei's face. I actually hit him for the first time when going far enough to reach him a to big satisfaction on my part But of course, what surprised sensei at first wouldn't work all the time. He kept hitting me with every punch until I gre irritated again, decided not to try too hard to move all the way back and use his strategy against him. I got his punch as usual, but without actually trying to avoid too much and attacked back in an instant and got him, haha! I grew so satisfied with myself, that I thought this is going to be my strategy, too! But I forgot that sensei, unlike me, isn't stupid that it would take him forever to figure out how to destroy my strategy. He expected I'd do that again and he attacked back immediately after my fast retaliation. And hit me even harder, because I had a stupid satisfied grin on my face and didn't try to move back as fast as possible :bang: Dang, sensei would always make me learn the hard way The other rounds and drills with ther partners were so much more relaxed... But not too much to my benefit so that I would actually lern something. Another nice round was with the only other blackbelt there in a free kumite at the end, using only hands. We laughed and just went against each other with several attacks in a sequence. It was a light contact, so a lot of fun and I really enjoyed that round I wasn't sure if I should stay for the self-defence class for women. In the end I decided not to, partially because I had some work at home and partially because the training would be identical and to be honest I'm a bit afraid to spar with beginners, because some can't control the strikes or nails to the eyes too well and I'm not good enough in sparring to be sure I can defend everything. Not being good at sparring was of course a reason to attend, but in the end I chose not to...
Tuesday 18.10.16: 19:15-20:00 - Advanced class: Sensei was probably solving something and we started later. He announced today will be a kumite class, too, but there were only three of us and him. The first 30 minutes were spent with drills (with gloves), changing partners all the time. The last 15 minutes were 2 rounds with each person of free sparring (first round only hands, second round legs, too). It wasn't too vilent, but I'm still a bit scared of sparring. I was a bit paranoid when I saw a friend who at times goes harder than I'm comfortable with and doesn't always have everything under control and I figured I'd have more than one round with sensei, too, so I took (for the first time, finally!) my chest protector I bought last year. Felt comrfortable and made me a bit less afraid. And I took the gum shield, too. I only got a few bruises on forearms from the drills we did yesterday and today, a bump on my shin, because I thought if I do a quick mawashi geri, a friend will hopefully not have enough time to block with his knee. He didn't but he started his kick just after me, so still kneed me in the shin, although it wasn't half as bad as last time when this happened to me. But since then I decided to only kick head-height or with a relatively safe ura-mawashi geri (hook kick). I did (and succesfully!) try that one on sensei and got him from the side. But I figured it was a bad idea as soon as I hit him, because he had the foot protectors (meaning he was prepared to kick and with a bit of contact) and I realized I just reminded him f his favourite kick, which he, unlike me, loves to do to the head. I just so knew, that I had to smile and told him: "I'm about to get a kick to the head, right?" He totally admitted it! I was prepared and he indeed tried that. I had a block prepared specifically for that, but it was, of course, stupid to tell him. He of course knew I'm expecting it, so he didn't go through, but stopped close to me, circled his leg around my blocking hand and went with a mawashi geri to my face instead XD :bang: Damn! I'm really happy I took the gum shield. I only have three small tears on the lip, but the teeth and everything didn't hurt ^^ It was a last match of the training so for once sensei, although unwittingly, stood up to his usual claim: "We're going till first blood!"
