New Kata!

As I've mentioned before Shūdokan is very focused on kata.  The preset movements act as a foundation to everything done at the school.  First comes kata, then the bunkai and finally the application.  

Unlearning the casual brutality of my old school is not difficult, but I often look back fondly on how tough it used to make me feel.  I miss the physical contact, but not the injury so I console myself with the excitement of learning new stuff as a replacement.  However, my learning curve is a bit modest.  At six katas, I'm still getting fine tuning tips and reminders about footwork etc. 

To my pleasure, last night Reed Sensei hit me up with, "let's work on a new kata tonight" again.  Before that started Mark and I went through the ten elbow techniques and then worked on the Kyoku series.  

The Kyoku are specific to Shūdokan meaning that they aren't supposed to be shared openly.  That being said they feel fairly normal in the scope of kata, but their bow in and out are unusual.  Working with Mark on their bunkai and application didn't take that long since we'd worked on them in the past I could kind of remember them reasonably well.  

My new kata is called Chattan Yata Ku San Ku.  I have no earthly idea if I'm spelling that correctly.  Apparently, we borrow several kata from Yata from Chattan (or maybe that's the other way around?).  Reed Sensei tells me this is black belt kata which will have some jump kicks.  We made it through the first leg so now I have something new to practice!

Exercise note

I'm trying to keep consistent with the running.  I got up to 2.5 miles, but it was littered with stops and one of my calves gave up on the return.  Assuming I have time tonight I'm going to try again and see how it feels.  

I'm keeping up with the weights, but's relegated to the weirdest most broken up schedule I could imagine. For instance I did shoulders at 5 this morning.  What the hell is wrong with me!