Working The Basics

It all comes down to the basics - at least when folks are looking at you with a microscopic analysis of your skills.  Each superfluous movement of a foot, every time I look in the incorrect spot, and every stance that makes me appear standing far too tall all add up to make me look less than proficient.  

I mentioned some years back that this style of karate tends to focus deeply on Kata because one of the original guys said that some people are naturally adept at fighting so the only way to see where the skill lays is within kata and bunkai.  

Because of my intermittent history with various martial arts over the course of my life my basics are scattered at best, but has made me flexible when it comes to relearning.   

This all leads to last night.  Somewhere in my head/sub-conscious I decided that I would do all the stances as low as possible.  Just to see where it would go.  I'd stop when my knees couldn't take it or i'd fall over.  Then I'd focus on my hips.  I make them snap for every move with a punch or strike.  

What I didn't take into account was that Daniel was going to run the class and he was okay with working on our cardio.  And part of working of cardio was just trashing the legs.  Squats, sprints and slow kicks.  I mean I loved it, but by the time I got to work on kata I was pretty wrung out.  However, I made sure those stances were fantastic, just hard as heck to keep balance when moving.  

Today's practice felt a tiny bit better and a tiny bit lower.