First Official Break!

Due to the many exciting things going on in my life at any given time, taking time for martial arts can be a challenge.  My wife and me are preparing a rental and doing work in our new place, so an afternoon class breaks things up too much and I can't get things done in a consistent fashion.  

Fortunately, the school offers a class at 5:45 in the morning.  No one has been going so one of the trainers has offered to start it again for me.  It's basically private lessons!  

Today was my first day (we are going to try Tue - Thurs) and I was surprised I was able to shake off the sleep and get going.  Mack JKN ran me through all my basics and we worked on language whenever we could.  As usual, working on basics is a continuing kind of thing.  You're never actually done, but I'm bottom rung in this process.  I'm literally retooling my punches and kicks.  To be specific I feel like I'm learning kicks for the first time.  Back when I was in Tang Soo Do we did a lot of kick basics, but it's long since gone in my memory.  However, I cannot remember this level of scrutiny in the mechanics.  

Since my world view in martial arts is shifting quite a bit I realize the focus in my Shudokan school was kata driven.  There were kicks, but really most of the time we focused on how to do them well enough that the kata looked good.  Soo Bahk is definitely focused on generating power within a technique and technique is a huge focus.  

To wit - To show that you can do the technique you have to break some wood.  In my TSD school we didn't break because of the cost of wood.  Island life made that an uncomfortable price and my teacher didn't want that outlay.  In Shudokan it never even came up.  So I have belts in two arts and never broke anything (not entirely true as we played around with it at TSD with plastic boards).  

After spending a lot time breaking down my kicks and rebuilding them, Mack JKN slid a board holder to about my chest height and put in a plastic breakaway board. The framework holds the board with bungies and has a pad in the back so you have something you crash into.  

So I did a roundhouse and made modest contact and the board fell on the ground.  The next shot went well and the fake board shot everywhere.  Too much gas apparently.  Mack JKN pointed out that I was far beyond where we working and thought I could do more boards.  Oh my.  

Who knows what will be on tomorrow's plate!

 

Kyum Son Means Humility

Last night was test night, but the kids classes are the standard organized pandemonium that seems prevalent in any martial art school.  This is compounded by a rigorous schedule.  I showed up a bit early to warm up, but that wasn't going to happen because there is a class directly before the one I was supposed to attend.  

So I sat and stayed quiet while one of the most patient people on earth tried to teach some four and five year olds how to do a presentation for a video submission.  I kept saying in my head, "bless her heart," and "what a glutton for punishment."  

Once they bowed out the next class was getting organized.  Colette SBN was trying to get a video participant on line squared away and a field of eight to ten year olds organized for their videos.  While another Jokyo worked on basics with them Colette grabbed me and another 8 year old to work on our basics for our "test".  I wasn't clear on the test part as it seemed super informal in my case, but it consisted of all our basics, one form, sparring with me and breaking a board for my diminutive partner.  With four feet in height disparity I felt that I had the advantage, hahah, but I have to admit the kid wasn't intimidated.  Since it wasn't a contact thing we spun around each other and chucked kicks and punches at one another until Colette called it about two minutes in.  

At this point I assumed we'd have a formal test in front of a judging table, but she stopped at that point to get the video submissions of all the kids for the virtual tournament. So I sat with the kids while one by one they got up to perform.  As you can imagine the lack of experience for an eight year old who just started a few classes ago lent to some dramatic revisioning of the basic forms.  It was a bit hard to watch at times but everyone was very supportive.

So my question was did I take a test?  I'm not really sure, but I did everything pretty poorly.  My struggle with Korean is an ever present obstacle and then there was the constant corrections.  I don't there was one item that didn't need a fix and Colette was there pointing them out.  Ouch.  Right in the pride.  

Due to the mayhem that was the class and the next people coming in as we bowed out I didn't get to find out what was what, but I was left with this comment, "we'll keep working on this basics for now."  Ouch. Right in the pride.  

The Danger Of Speaking Too Soon

Yesterday was our video submission for the national and international tournament.  We spent the bulk of the class refining our moves on the forms.  I was working with Jokyo Nim Holman (JKN from now on).  He was submitting the same form so we just dug at it for the first 45 minutes.   

Mine wasn't perfect, but way better than last week.  I made one obvious error and I'm sure many things could be improved, but given my time with the form I was pretty please.  JKN Simonis was very complimentary in saying that I simply corrected my mistakes just being told once.  It must have been a good day for me.  Hah.

When we were lining up for the class to complete, Colette SBN mentioned testing.  I was partially tuning out because I was trying to remember Korean words.  We'd just been given eight on Monday and I was struggling as per usual.  My attention returned to her as she started talking about testing in the next class.  I realized she assumed that I'd be participating.  Wait, what?  Apparently, I'm going to get run through tests for each rank.  So this would be the equivalent of a white belt exam.  Unfortunately, I had already committed to work with my wife, so I had to offer an alternative.  

So today I get to test in the evening with a bunch of children.  This should be wildly hilarious.  Thankfully I'll get to wear a mask to reduce overall embarrassment.  Maybe nobody will recognize the fact that I'm six feet plus amongst people who are about three feet plus.  That's fine.  

I'll report in tomorrow about all this goes.

Stress Free Test Prep

Things continue to improve for our main teacher since the previous Friday.  He was back on his feet a few days after getting knocked flat.  The final thought was that he had a heart attack, but it didn't appear to be the case.  To confirm that, today he goes in today to get an angiogram.  I have my fingers crossed it'll all be good.  

While the school evens it's keel, my program has remained the same.  Practice the basics, learn the words and work on Chil Sun Ee Ro to get ready for the virtual tournament.  It's not a lot of time to practice, so I'm a little concerned that I'll be turning in a substandard video, but the nice thing about this is that you can take continuous takes until you feel good about it!  Nice.  

We had most of the class out yesterday so it was just me and Mr. Schwartz being led by Jokyo Simonis.  She's pretty impaired by MS so she just tells us what to do and if I run into a problem with the Korean she tells me in English.  If a demo is needed Mr. Schwartz does a demo.  

Mondays, I have figured out, are basics and forms.  Since I'm essentially a white belt at this point I'm running through basics and trying to reinvent my personal wheel.  My current list is:

- Middle Punch
- High Punch 
- Middle Punch Opposite Side
- High Punch Opposite Side
- High Block
- Middle Block
- Low Block
- Knife Hand Block
- Stretch Kick
- Inside Outside Kick
- Front Thrust Kick
- Round house Kick - Rear Foot
- Round house Kick - Step through
- Round house Kick - Shuffle forward

I'm probably missing something here, but focused on my horrible roundhouses.  Everyone reminds me that I'm just coming back, etc, but I always thought I was so good at them.  My balance is shabby because I straighten my ground leg and I can can't quite look over my shoulder and hip anymore due to flexibility.  By the time we finish that section I'm starting to warm fully and become more stable.  

Colette and Andy SBNs have been working very hard behind the scenes on my behalf, which kind of embarrasses me. I really didn't walk in with any agenda other than working out, but they definitely want me to have my 1st/2nd Don via transfer, but it means they have to do political wrangling on my behalf.  So they go up the chain about what to do and how to go about it.  So they don't want me to buy a dobok (gi) until they sort out my perceived rank.  As part of this they seem to really want me to get rid of my Japanese belt.  Especially for the virtual test.  Colette has been trying to find a midnight blue belt (SBDs version of a black belt) for a few weeks with no luck, but Andy popped out last night to say high to the class and waved me over.  He gave me one of his old belts with his name covered!  I'm not sure I showed enough appreciation since we were in the middle of the class, but I think I'll send a message today about it.  

I need to wear my oldest gi tomorrow so I don't stand out too much and wear Andy's belt.  

Teacher Down!

We've had a lot of activity at the school in the last couple of days.  Our main teacher fell ill on last Sunday afternoon.  He's a diabetic and went into a near coma.  He finally got out of the hospital yesterday and the doctors were concerned that he may have had a heart attack which would have created the issue.  It now looks like he's going to need an angiogram.  He said hi when we were starting class last night and looked pretty good considering.  

Class was led by an older teacher who called the work, but mostly sat down.  Very nice lady and one of the instructors took over any demonstration.  

We ran over basics, which for me is the mostly humbling experience. Everybody does the basics for their level of experience so the guys on other side of me are jumping and spinning and doing all kinds of combos while I struggled through doing punches and blocks.  Kicks were pretty tough as well.  

After we did that, it was back to working on Chil Sung (form).  I'd been thinking it was a pretty simple form for a dan test, but as it emerged judges examine how all the basics are played out in the form to tell if the student is meeting the criteria for physical knowledge.

Punches and kicks (via the SBD method) are dramatically different from what I've been doing for the last couple of years.  The idea is still to generate power and place your punch and landing all at the same time but the execution is vastly different.  In SBD we put our shoulder and hip back so the body is almost sideways.  When the punch lands, you are driving the hip and shoulder as well as the arm into the punch.  It feels incredibly powerful, but setting yourself up is massive.  Maybe that'll come more naturally in the future.  

Kicks have a similar restructure.  SBD closely looks at the form (don't all schools!) and it's all about cocking the physique and on impact forcing or rolling the hip extract all the power that can be had.

This morning I'm stiff and my back is groaning.  I'm going to take it as a sign that I did really well, hah!

Virtual Beatings

Years ago my buddy Todd would playfully scold his dog, but saying, "beatings!"  After laughing because the dog saw it as an invite to play, I stole it for my karate class at the time.  Everyone in my circle called it beatings from then on.  At my new SBD school it hasn't come up because of the generally serious nature of things there.  But in my mind it's a filler word for many of the things said.  

Each week we have a have a word or concept to focus our development.  This week was Moo dan(?) jaseh.  If I have the words correct, it means "martial stance."  I won't bore the readers with reading into that, but as the teacher went into that all I could think of was "beatings!"

Because my normally expansive jocularity is being suppressed, I'm actually paying more attention and have a better idea of what's going on in class.  When the teachers were busy for a minute I asked a few of the other students about the upcoming virtual tournament.  I'd never heard of one and they didn't seem to know much about it.  As if by providence, Sabom Nim started talking about it and I just assumed my newness precluded me from participation.  I was wrong.  She was encouraging all of us to participate including me.  

Apparently, this was a one off due to the plague so they are doing the national and international tournament via video submission.  So no sparring, but just forms.  Since I'm a tentative first rank they want me to submit something and that ended up being the form below.  Fairly simple, but a requirement for a first dan in SBD.  So I'm to refine this as much as possible - see below:

Sorry about the editing.  Anyway, this will hopefully look more refined in the next couple of weeks.  

Heat Wave Babble

I was trying to think of some cohesive theme to make a catchy title for today's post, but I woke up at 2:40 am and struggling just to be coherent.  I mean to say that I didn't get back to sleep so I'm punchy and emotional.  My watch tells me that I got 2 hours of good sleep and I agree.  Ugh.

This is disappointing since I went back to class last night.  Normally, the activity really helps me to sleep and I went to sleep hard last night.  I'm up in the Pacific Northwest and the heat has broken all records.  No one has air conditioning up here because they never needed it before.  We tried all our tricks to keep the house cool, but it didn't work.  The last couple of nights the house was in the 90s.  No sleep and straight up miserable.

Sabom Nim sent out an email to notify everyone that the school has AC.  I was the first in the door and I drug my feet leaving.  She invited me to the next class, but I had to get back to the house to do some more work.  

The teachers are still running me through the basics to make sure I look smart, but I feel clunky and have to think all the time which really reduces any sense of flow.  It's also personally embarrassing to be doing basics poorly.  I know I'll get better, but fighting all the technique I learned from a Japanese style is fairly hard.  

The curriculum I'm working on is basic white belt stuff (9th gup).  Three blocks, two punchs and six kicks.  Shudokan is not this kick intensive so it's a work out for me even at the basics.  

The issue I'm experiencing at the moment is not necessarily inflexibility, but the higher I kick the more my lower back comes into play.  So this morning my lumbar is complaining.  My PT thinks is arthritis, but feels like I can get some relief if I do my flexibility exercises regularly (which I haven't).  Working at the house hasn't helped.  There is no easy way to do floor work that doesn't set my back off.  Now that that stuff has slowed I might be in a position to heal a bit.

The Giant Checklist

I think I've pointed out in the last several posts that the content I've been getting at the school has been like drinking from a firehose.  All over the board and lots of it.  I didn't think of addressing it; assuming that was the nature of the class structure.  

At the beginning of class yesterday Collette Sabom Nim (Teacher Elder) addressed the issue verbatim.  She and Andy had been spit-balling about how to handle my situation.  

After reading the manual I realized the pressure is on them to vouch for me, so they ended up giving me a check list of all the requirements for all the ranks.  This seemed like a good idea to me as I'm struggling with the Korean and the difference in strikes, blocks and kicks.  

So we ran through all the requirements connected to getting the 9th gup.  Four hand techniques, three foot and some one-step sparring.  

I didn't think it would be a big deal, figuring this would correspond with a white belt in traditional karate.  Wrong. I managed to get all the blocks and strikes incorrect due to their chamber position being different from what I was used to.  That just got worse because I couldn't get the terminology straight.  At one point I was getting embarrassed, but Collette was always cool and supportive.

Next came the kicks.  Although there are only three in the requirements, Collette ran me threw about seven or eight.  No surprises here, but like the other things the simple differences through me off.  I was pleased by my remaining flexibility which allowed my kicks in the front to go pretty high, but anything roundhouse was horrible.  It takes me a lot of effort to go head height so I lose balance easily.  Back to being embarrassed again.  

We moved on to wrist grabs, which took too long for me to remember correctly and finally ended up on sparring.  There were three students, a 10 year old, a 16 year old and me.  Then they introduced a wrinkle - two on one.  The attempt being that we learn how to line up to attacks.  I was abysmal at this.  I couldn't attack over the 10 year old so the 16 year old would pick away at us.  Exhausting and hilarious.  It's a good training exercise.

Change Is The Only Constant

I would say that a foundational aspect to teaching martial arts is repetition.  At some point you need to practice a thing enough that it becomes part of muscle memory.   

I haven't been to this school very long; maybe three weeks at this point.  The teachers continue to change the content based on the needs of the student's level of practice.  Since I'm in a black belt level group the teachers shift gears pretty frequently to cover a lot of content.  Wednesday's class was split between a test and forms.

One of the extremely young folks (with a Red dobok) was testing for his next rank.  I was a judge which was odd since I didn't know the procedures, but it was fairly close to all the stuff we'd been doing at the Shudokan school.  

A cool addition was breaking.  I've never had that as requirement, so I was pretty intrigued.  They have a rack on the wall that holds the board.  Then our young man executes a hook kick beautifully.  I was impressed.  He used the exact amount of energy to do the work.  Super cool.  I would have overdone it.  

The new portion of this was the questions.  Yikes!  Kinda tough work for a guy I would guess was 9 or 10.  I assume he passed or this was a pre-test.  I wasn't really certain and there wasn't any room to ask.  

We switched gears as soon as that was done to forms.  In SBD there are 10 kata up to the first rank of black belt.  I think this is fairly standard.  So we went through the second half of them.  I remember the name, but that was about it.  We got through four of the forms and that was a trial.  Lots of corrections for me, but I was honestly just trying to remember the patterns.  Ugh.  

I got my membership completed and now I have a Gup number, so I'm official.  Wee.  I was also given a manual and told to find the transfer section.  To sort out the requirements to migrate my belt over.  Ugh.  Eventually I'll need to test and it'll be based on my teachers estimate of my level of skill.  So far it's crap.  Thankfully I'm in no hurry.  Just learning.

Your Chinese Roots Are Showing

I'm currently moving again (this time only 8 blocks away), which puts the beatings schedule into some jeopardy.  However, my wife is supportive of me going so I'm able to balance things this week.  Last week was just too physically exhausting.  Going to class at 7 and then go running in the afternoon just about broke me.  The runs were horrible.  I'm clearly not in that kind of shape.  

This week I'm going to the evening class and running on opposite days.  It's not optimal for moving, but I'm not completely wiped out either.  

Last night we ran through all the hand techniques, which could be considered strikes as well as blocks.  I'm trying to learn Korean words via flashcards (Ankidroid in my case) which works wonders, but there is no pronunciation so I'm often left with no idea with what's being said.  I was picking a few things up now and then.  

The latest difference I'm getting used to now is that the blocks and strikes all seem to come from under the arm.  In Shudokan it was about half and half so I'm often fumbling around.  

We then moved to forms where the language barrier to another turn.  The teachers are focused on my getting my first or second degree in SBD since I have a belt in Tang Soo Do from back in the day.  The see it as a transferable item as long as give the year to them for retraining.  As a part of this, the terms I used in Shodokan and before are coming back up, but have a different twist.  For instance, last night I was working with a teacher of lesser rank, a Jo Kyo (pronounced, "Joke Yo") on Ni Han Shi Cho Dan.  In my last school, known as NiFanshi.  You'd think I'd be able to say that without stumbling, but no.  Every time.  Sigh.

It's been awhile since I'd worked on that one, maybe five years.  So my teacher walked me through it and by the end of the class I was back in the game.  Several things are different, but the main pattern is there.  I'll practice that each day to make sure I don't flub up things or get the name wrong.  

SBD Update

I'm on my third SBD (Soo Bahk Do) class and it's starting to feel like I need to pay.  It's fantastically inexpensive and I can go every day of the week, twice a day if I wanted. The first month is free, but I can't imagine I'd be going anywhere else.  

There is such a pervasive feeling of being home. So much of the class is so reminiscent of my old TSD (Tang Soo Do) school.  Every wrist twist is trip down memory lane.  

I ended up working on Self-Defense stuff (Ho Sin Sool) with a guy who is probably in high school.  Since we all call each other Mr. and Sir.  I couldn't stop giggling.  Not super professional on my part, but I'm having such a good time.  

We were working through wrist locks and grabs which were following by a strike of some sort.  In my case we had a kick in one and the young Mr. planted a kick right in my face.  I could not stop laughing.  I can't believe the joy it bought me.  I thought to myself, "I'm back baby"!  

Anyway, I need to consider the early class since it would less disruptive to my work day.  

Shifting Gears So Hard You Can Hear Grinding

One month has passed since the last post and already so much has changed. When I last left off I was diligently attending zoom based Karate. After my month of class I realized, after thinking out loud with my wife ad nauseum, that this wasn't a good fit for me.  

I absolutely loved the guy teaching the class, but he definitely had a different focus compared to my old school.  My old school in the Thorn city had a very dedicated path towards testing.  Certain classes were specifically for test prep and others were basics.  If we didn't work on basics, we'd learn something different to break up the potential monotony.  

The zoom based class was forty-five minutes long (my old school was several hours per class), with the addition of a warm up the actual learning time would be reduced to 20 minutes.  It was absolutely infuriating to me.  I realize attacking the basics only serves to make us better and this teacher was fantastic at doing this, but it finally dawned upon me that I really wanted to focus my next exam.  My wife continued to check my desires and in the end I was looking at my satisfaction and enjoyment.  Neither were there.  I'd come out of the class frustrated and angry.  Not good.

I ended up called Reed (my sensei from Thorn city) and talking about how this path had ground to a halt.  We talked for an hour and ran through the whys and wherefores and I came out with the comfortable feeling that I had made the best choice for me and he was supportive as always.  

All this brings me up to last night.  The small town we have moved to has a Soo Bahk school.  I'd called them several weeks back and never heard anything from them.  I'd assumed that they had closed due to the plague, but they called me on Monday and explained that their phone system had died.  After a little chatting I got a schedule and last night was my first class.  

My first school (in the frost) was Tang Soo do and was taught in Japanese even though it was a Korean art.  My second school was Shudokan and taught in Japanese and now I'm moving into Soo Bahk which is very Korean.  Thankfully in school one we used Korean names for the forms so not everything is alien, but I have a big learning curve coming up.  The only English is when we are working on technique.  Yeek!

After plenty of handholding last night we ended up working on wrist locks as part of the self defense curriculum.  Thankfully it's all pretty standard fair, but they add in follow up strikes.  Getting my feet and hands to work together was difficult, but what a joy to be back in the game and getting to grab on people!

A few notes:  everyone wore masks even though everyone was vaccinated.  I was the youngest person there at 54.  One guy was going to be out for a knee replacement so the class was only three students and two instructors.  Awesome.  They let me keep my black belt - nice respect there.  They talked right away about me testing in their school in about a year!  I was like, "I just want to train", but still super respectful of my background.  

Back! Remote Training and Other Big News

Our school in Thorn City stopped training altogether in late November.  Not much longer after my last post.  Our teacher had grown even more concerned about transmissibility, but the darkness in the park had driven us into Marks garage for practice.  This was making him and us a bit tense.  No one had vaccines at that time.  He finally called it around Thanksgiving.  I did experience a small amount of pleasure getting some of my evenings back after years, but it also created a void. So much of my life revolves around planned activities.  With their removal I'm left feeling adrift.  

Normally this would be greeted with some happiness because there was always work on the house to be done, but it the last year all the major projects at the house were completed.  For the first time in six years we had time to do what we wanted to do.  In October, which normally would have been busy with my birthday shenanigans, turned out to be introspective and quiet, so my wife and I went on a road trip to visit a few friends in the nearby states.  At one point we were in the far North of Washington state and I felt a sense of home I hadn't experienced in some time.  

As my wife and I started spending more and more time at home and talking about where we at this stage in life, we reviewed our recent trip in October and started thinking about what a possible change would look like.  Eventually we got around to talking about moving.  My job is based at home and my wife is retired so the idea of moving came easier than I thought, but I originally didn't want to move with the idea that I had another year and a half until I could test for my 3rd degree (SanDan).  But with the school/training stopped for an unknown period that didn't seem to be holding me down anymore.  

Long story short - we moved five hours North to a small town on the ocean.  We have a smaller home and we are busy settling in to our new community.  Once we started settling I approached Reed and asked what to do.  He referred me to the nearest school and worked out the introduction so now I'm doing Zoom karate.  

There is four or five of us working on our SanDan and I find that I'm bit farther along than the others, but I'm so rusty on my kata that it's not like I'm bored by anything.  Last week we started on what is my eighth kata, Sanseiru.  

This guy rips through it.  

I'm into this about ten moves.  Shaky beginner stuff, but it's nice to feel a little more forward momentum.  My new instructor, James, is an incredible teacher, but time is limited to 45 minutes per class.  

I'm hoping more of the folks at that school have vaccines soon as the bunkai portion of the training has been absent for over a year now for me.  The school is an hour away so I won't be going frequently, but it sure would be nice to get engaged physically again.

Four Places and Sixth Kata

 I'm actually on my 7th kata, but we learned one of them out of sequence.  I've just learning the 6th one, Seiyunchin now.  Here's the video after completing the kata.

Sorry about the quality, framing, etc.

As I may have mentioned before, each degree in Shudokan, is a new style.  The nidan, or second degree was White Crane and the third (shodan) is Goju-Ryu.  So I have to learn a completely new style each rank.  In the case of GR I have to learn twelve kata which makes it more demanding since the traditional number is ten.  

Another factor that is weighing in on the learning curve is Covid.  We normally meet at our local park, but the lack of light and temperature has driven us inside Mark's garage, but it also means we can only have four people training at one time.  As you can see in the video we work at keeping 6 feet, but that's even a challenge.  

Tonight should be even more challenging due to cold weather.  Ugh.  

3 Days of Donyu

 I may have underestimated Reeds enthusiasm about Yamanni-Ryu study.  We are on our third day studying Donyu Kun kata.  Not that it's horrible to being something different, but I feel like we used to balance exam prep with something new a bit better. It's just me being antsy to get to my test.  I'd rather have it all done as much as possible so I can refine and refine for the next couple of years.

Anywho, we kind of beat the Donyu Kun Ichi kata to death.  It's simple pattern, but the moves have some subtly that only time is going to draw out.  So we split the group into two and the folks that wanted to try the next kata went with Daniel.

Yamanni-ryu uses the same pattern for the kata and then adds moves in that are move advanced.  For example in kata one we simply block. In kata 2 block, parry, strike and parry.  So the pattern doesn't change, but there are a lot of new movements.  Super fun.  

An added difficulty for me is that my staff (bo) is heavy.  Fifteen plus years ago my wife wanted to buy me something special and chatted with my teacher at the time about a weapon.  I ended up getting a heavy oak one with a modest taper.  I'm not sure what the advantages are, but my shoulders are definitely feeling it after the fact.  Moving it, controlling and stopping it all contribute to a long hard hour of work.  

I'm writing this the morning after and my hands and shoulders appear to have the worst of it.  Sore, tired and somewhat swollen.  

The embedded video below is an example of how the pattern got way more complicated.  Fun!

This afternoon I'll go on my fourth run after restarting after several years off. Ugh.  1.3 miles is my current limit.  My legs and knees are catching up to my lungs, but my pace is still fairly slow.  At 10:30 mile.  Nothing to get excited about.

Weapons In The Park

 Sensei hit that point in training where he wanted to try something different.  I totally appreciate when we hit this point.  Usually an indication that we've hit a plateau and need to shake it up.

As a group we don't focus on weapons a great deal.  I'm always interested because I have such a minimal exposure.  I have three bo (staff) kata, but have largely forgotten them.  

Yesterday we studied a short kata from the Yammani-Ryu school, Donyu Kun Ichi (Introduction Staff One).  Reed went into a lot of description about why we were doing what we were doing, but we completed it by the end of the time.  Apparently it continues to gain complexity in the second form, but uses the same pattern.

Here is a nice example of what we learned.

We are a bit more vigorous.

In other news - It's been slightly over a year since I took my Nidan exam.  I've got two years to go before my exam.  I'm really hoping that the pandemic is managed by then.  My classmate Mary-Ann is going for her Yondan which sounds stressful.  All wrapped up at the school and possibly get Covid or do it at home via video conference where things are so separate.  

Karate In the Time Of Apocolypse

 I haven't written much because there hasn't been much going on.  The Pacific Northwest has been inundated with biblical plagues during the last month, so even leaving the house was becoming hazardous due to air quality.  While waiting for the air to clear we had to keep an eye on the fires that were creating them.  My wife and I packed to leave twice when evac levels started ramping up.  Absolutely stressful.  I now have a small insight into what folks in California run into year to year.

During this time I've been diligently practicing my six katas, but have a tendency to moan about progress or lack there of.  When you can't leave your house all of sudden the time that you never had you get back in spades.  So practice became a regular thing.  Too bad we could get together as a class.

Just as covid set in I began a serious regime of weight lifting.  I once aspired to be a body builder in my younger years and took up the weights again in a attempt to stave off the muscle wasting that seems to come with age.  Unfortunately, returning to the process also landed me with several injuries.  A hamstring, a shoulder and finally my neck.  When the neck thing started appearing I finally ended weights, but it took about four weeks of PT to get to the point where I can be mobile without pain.  It would appear that I have a slightly damaged C6 or C7.  When it bulges it pinches a nerve that goes down my left shoulder and arm.  The pain it created almost made me psychotic.  I now have insight into people with chronic pain conditions.  I wouldn't want to wish that on anyone.  It's horrible.

So the PT worked it's charm and I do all sorts of weird exercises to alleviate the pinch in my neck and I can do a lot again.  I haven't picked up the weights just yet due to fear, but I was able to go back to karate!  

And now that the air is clear (the air quality hit 500 at one point - toxic) karate in the park was back on, but socially distanced as before.  The concern I carry now it about warming up and minding my body carefully so I don't re-injure or slow down current healing.  

I got there a bit early and starting warming up, but I strangely never feel like I'm ready to go.  Our warms up always let me know that one part is not ready to go at all.  In this case my left ham appeared locked. I couldn't even sit with spread legs.  Super frustrating.  

We got going and I ended up working with Olivia on Shishochin.  She hasn't had time to practice so we went over a multitude of times.   Then we were corrected by Sensei on a host of little things.  After a ton of refinement we moved on to a new kata - Seiyunchin!

I got the three first moves down and we ran out of time.  Super cool though, since this means that we are on seventh of twelve kata!  

After I got home, my neck told me that it was worked so it was back to exercises to loosen it up and try to relax.  It appears to be fine this morning - whoop!

Karate In The Time Of Covid

 I gotta watch that big toe

I gotta watch my neck, don't punch to hard

Watch for overloading that left knee.

Don't kick so hard on the left or you'll hurt that bad hammie.  

Try to get time with Sensei to answer some questions about that one piece in the kata.

Keep your eyes up during the kata.

Man, my mind is busy.  The above was floating around in my skull before and during our most recent session in the park.  I'm trying to address the work at hand, but my recent spate of physical issues tends to press in inopportunely.  

I tweaked my left knee recently going up and down a ladder.  It stiffens easily.  I've had this before so just babying, regular movement should clear it up in a week.  

My bulging C6/7 is finally resolving.  Regular exercises have pulled the bulge back to the point where the nerves are barely pinching.  However, punching at full strength certainly aggravates things, but I was totally fine to go to sleep comfortably last night.  

My PT has given me new exercises to help with work on my hamstring.  Because the injury appeared to be so high up (on the hip bone) I probably wasn't doing too much with traditional stretches.  The new stuff really is nice and I see progress, but this morning sitting is tough, which means I probably overdid it last night.  

I'm up to six kata (of the twelve I need to learn for my test) and although they are short I find myself forgetting pieces and parts.  They aren't totally engrained yet.  So I imagine it's going to be a bit before I get to number seven.  

The current list:

1. Gekki Sai Dai Ichi
2. Gekki Sai Dai Ni
3. San Shin
4. Tensho
5. Saifa
6. Shiso Shin

Please forgive spelling errors.  

 

Bassai in the park

Holy Cow!  So much time has passed since I've sat down and collected my thoughts for a quick update about my martial practice.  March was my last entry!  Here we are in July and I've a bit of a restart about a month ago.

Sensei has the blackbelts meeting in a nearby park twice a week.  We all wear masks and stay six feet apart.  The heat has become unfortunate, but the shaded areas are reasonable.  I feel like there is a certain amount of irony about all the folks complaining that they can't breath with a simple surgical mask.  I think they should be doing an action packed kata with one on. 

I'm often breathing so hard that I'm pulling the mask into my mouth a good bit.  Apparently I'm back out of shape.  Doing kata for an hour has become grueling.  I'm not sure the heat or generally my household internment is the greater cause, but I can assume both have weight in the problem. 

During the covid lock down I've returned to weightlifting, but I've been accumulating injuries consistently.  Hamstring, two shoulders and a forearm have been the stuff I've been overcoming.  So the return to karate has been really nice.  I see it as a reasonable exercise, but as we gear up at the park I struggle to keep up with my various injuries peeking through. 

Since we can get near each other the only thing we are doing is working on kata.  I'm not slated to learn much more than what I know (towards my third dan) so I'm helping out Kyle work on his Nidan.  It's a treat to help, but as per usual, I'm not confident with my teaching skills.  What to focus on?  What to correct? And so on. 

Sensei took yesterday to get us all to learn Bassai Dai.  I was very pleased because this was a kata I did for my Blackbelt in Tang So Do.  However the versions are different, and I doubt I could remember it anyway.  Once we got rolling I was able to recall the moves in some spots.  Below I've got an example of the karate and the TSD so you can see the differences.

Karate with commentary! 

And 

TSD with some notes.  Master Kil

As you can see the patterns are fairly compatible, but TSD really doesn't look at the stances too much and adds a lot of spring to the whole thing.  Sigh, the good old days.  The stances in the Japanese version are challenging to me.  

Full Iron Circle

When I started at the Shudokan school five years ago, MaryAnn Sensei was working on her San Dan and as part of that she would teach me the katas she was working on.  Here I am five years later doing the same thing!

As part of good learning we are told to teach to really absorb what's going on in a kata.  The four kata I have are relatively simple and short in length, but teaching represents a challenge because I tend to parrot what I've been told, but I don't know a lot of the "why's" and "what fors".  

Since my usual partner, Olivia, has been out to family issues Mark has been nice enough to work out with me.  As part of that I've been teaching him the four Goju-Ryu kata I know.  So that completes the circle for to a degree.  We touched on them Monday and as of yesterday he had all four down by the end of the second class.  He still struggles with pattern, but considering it was about five hours, he did a great job for someone who lists his own memory as being really short.

I'm feeling better and better with them and I think I might jump ahead and take alook at the next one to see how complicated it is.  Whoop!

Covid Dachi

The slow and insidious creep of Covid 19 in our region is impacting lots of things, but in respect to karate all the regional tournaments have been canceled.  That means that our focus for the last several months just ground to a halt. 

Reed uses a text string with all the black belts to give us news or ask questions.  As of this week this has turned into how do we deal with this issue of transmissible disease.   No one wants to miss class, but no one wants to wrangle with a case of the flu.  As a result we are now focusing on kata and pretty much zero contact.  

Thankfully we have a nurse in class and she gave us the info we more or less need - wash your hands a lot and don't worry so much if you're healthy.  The social distancing is probably good for the population in general, but the concern is over blown for healthy people.  If your old, if you have respiratory issues or immuno-suppressed then you might need to hide out for some time.  

This has allowed for us to focus on kata for a big stretch.  Since our new bb club is so close to the class we don't lose 20 to 30 minutes of driving.  So we are getting two plus hours of practice and instruction.  

For me it was back to Goju-Ryu basics and fine tuning my first three kata (Geki Sai Dai Ichi, Ni and Sanshin).  During the regular class it was all foot work, meaning that I had to do sanshin dachi for a half hour before he had me work with Cooper on his stuff.  My legs are pretty tired today.  

I definitely have to practice more though.  I'd forgotten a few items as per usual.  Sigh.

Bugs and changes

With the corona virus being in our backyard everything appears to be a bit impacted.  Work has required every one to work at home and cancelled all but necessary travel.  I hadn't really thought about anything beyond that, but last night Sensei mentioned that he's not going to the upcoming tournaments out of an abundance of concern.  Especially the ones where there are travelers from Southeast Asia going through multiple airports.  Yikes!

This means that the next tournament I had planned on might be in jeopardy.  Reed said we'll continue to work toward the tournaments as if we were going.  I guess it gives us a focus.  

We tried out a new place for the black belt group.  Mark has houses all over the area and has a basement near the club where we have our regular classes.  It's massive.  I think like 3000 square feet.  It's broken up into a lot of rooms, but it worked out for us.  Reed split us into skill groups so no one was stepping on anyone's toes.  The ceilings are a bit low with texture, so hands and knuckles beware.  This could be a new potential home base for us and certainly reduces all the driving we normally do.

The evening class was mostly occupied with working on a kata we all knew and tearing it down in various ways.  And then Mark and I tried to teach Cooper the second Kyoku kata.  I was enthusiastic, but with two teachers and one student I think we could have been better.  He's a good student so it went well even though we had poor instruction.  

Still In Prep Mode

I'm not sure how it is that I don't remember this time of the year from years past.  Clearly Reed and the others that normally go to tournaments during this quarter tend to focus on the little preparatory things, but I don't remember this level of involvement before.

Monday we focused on our katas that we'd be doing for tournament.  By that I mean it was working on details until we were blue in the face.  Which is nice to be honest because at home practice is usually once or twice run through with no one but myself.  It makes it hard to be objective.

Last night was back to fight night.  After a lot of interesting drills, which broke up our previous moves into different patterns we started matches way to late.  The style of tournament we are practicing now is more international.  There is a three point system which really emphasizes kicks to the head for three points.  The matches are 12 points and three minutes long.  They feel like forever.  To prepare for this style we added a huge amount of kicks to our repertoire.  I normally love kicks, but I'd forgotten how exhausting they are.  That's a lot muscle to energize over and over again, but against a shorter opponent I do way better than I thought, if I can regularly take shots with my legs.

Only one match and it was against Todd who always wins, but I got him 12 to 5 due to kicks.  Whoop.  

I immediately went home and gobbled ibuprofen to get ahead of the worst of the pain.  I guess this what we do in our 50s.  Ugh.  More stretching for sure.

Post Tournament Review

There is so much to talk about, but I'm not sure how much I can put into a cohesive story.  Of course, I'm not sure how much I write is cohesive, hah!

I decided fairly late into the process to go to tournament with my Sensei and Todd.  Normally I would have planned ahead by a couple more weeks and Sensei would have better numbers for the organizers.  Then we would have probably planned our weekend better, but such is life.  

We ended up leaving at 5 am, driving three and half hours and walking into registration at the last minute.  We were still dressing up when the first staging was occurring.  Thankfully there was around two hundred competitors so the little kids took up most of the first hour.  

The tourney was in a high school gym and the floor space was broken into 6 "rings".  The entire time I was there, except for the final grand champion fights, every ring was in use.  Totally a 6 ring circus and incredibly well organized.  

I registered for four events.   Black belt kata (men's open), Black Belt kata (men over 45), Kumite black belt men open and Kumite black belt men over 35 heavy weight.  

For my first kata I got an 8.5 which didn't place me due to the amount of competitors.  My second kata, which I thought was great was an average of 8.4 I think.  Still not good enough to place.  

We had to wait around a bit for Kumite so Reed and I thought we'd warm up during which he punched me in the mouth while we were moving fast.  No damage, but I thought I was going to go into competition with Kim Kardashian lips for a minute, hah!

Our open group of men turned out to be the friendliest folks.  We got chatting and laughing, but when it was fight time everyone was very serious.  I liked that vibe quite a bit.  It relaxed the atmosphere.  Todd told me later that the low color belts had a lot of testosterone.  We didn't seem to have it in our crowd.  

I honestly felt that I wouldn't be competitive due to the lack of experience in the last fifteen years, but to my surprise I won my first two matches.  I lost the third and figured it was no big deal.  I had my equipment off and got surprised when they called me again.  The single elimination thing really threw me off.  So I got another match in and lost that one and was finally out.  However out of a group of 12 guys I ended up fourth!  What the heck!?  

Micheal and Me.  Not elegant.

Mr. Rice and Me.  This is the one that ended my reign.

The next kumite was black belt men over 35 and and heavy weight.  We all asked what the weight cut off was and they said it was our preference.  What?  Finally an old timer said that the cut off was 175 lb.  Well we definitely all met and exceeded that.  

My first and only match was with Eric, the guy that ended up as grand champion.  It wasn't much of a contest.  I did a 0-3.  I felt that I got one point, but the judge was a AAUW guy and sorting out the action was so weird.  He never stopped us and both Eric and I got confused because we would reset and he would say "I didn't say yame."  So we'd launch as fast we could and the first person would get the point.  Sigh.

Eric and me.

My Sensei, Reed ended up in the grand champion round so we stayed pretty late.  We stopped for dinner on the way back and I ended up getting home at 9.  A long day.  

Long Reach

I know that I'm taller than most folks, but I never considered myself "tall".  So the emphasis for sparring this week was all about reach.  It turns out that I've got a big advantage in my class group anyway.  For the first time in sparring I'm getting decent points!  I'm not necessarily winning all the time, but way more than ever before.  

This revelation coincides with my decision to go to tournament this weekend.  Sensei and Todd decided to go, and I didn't really have a reason not to other than it's a very long day.  We need to drive three hours to get there and have a long day and then drive three hours back. Urgh.

The unfortunately side-effect to all this activity in sparring is that I'm fairly mangled this morning.  Learning to throw a punch from far away has made my right shoulder tender.  Warmup drills caught my small toes on my good foot making them uncomfortably sprained.  A side kick at Todd smashed my good foot into his knee, bruising and bursting the top of the foot.  My pinky must have caught a gi or something as it's swelled up this morning.  I'm going to be getting some ibuprofen in me soonest.

Toe news - I finally went back to the podiatrist about my bad big toe.  The joint is filling in which explains the lack of mobility and pain.  I'm supposed to work on it until such point that the pain is intolerable or constant and then it's time for a fusion.  It's not what I expected though.  A lattice across the top and a screw through the side.  The good part about this, other than the recovery period, is that I would gain 40% mobility and an absence of pain!  Winner.   So I guess it's something to look forward to?

My prep for tournament is buying a few things.  I needed to buy a new jock protector and new gloves.  The new protector is so nice in comparison to years past.  It comes in nice compression shorts and has a little pocket to hold the protector.  Super nice.  

Fight Night Fight Prep

It appears that Sensei is keeping to the plan where we use the entirety of Wednesdays to prep for sparring.  

The first forty minutes are warming up and then a specific lesson.  This time it was defense of counter punch.  Basically blocking with front or back hand and then reposting.  Very energic.  As usual, I thought I was going to be out of shape, but the excitement kept me going throughout.

I got two matches in.  My first was with a new yellow belt who beat me three to two and one against Daniel who beat me three to one.  Not my best work, but this was nice because we used coaches.  So we stop after a point and the coach would tell you that what you were doing wrong.  I wasn't fully committing kicks or punches!  So that was a big help.  I also tried using some strategy by moving to the weak side of my oppenent, but that went poorly as he knew what I was doing.  Sigh.  Even though there was two more losses under my belt it was nice to hear what I needed to improve on.  Next week!

A nice acknowledgement from Sensei.  He pointed out that point sparring is vastly different from self-defense and shouldn't be considered in the same boat, but still great to do.  Bunkai and application are the focus for self-defense.  Intriguing.  I wished that we had the standard matches where we could try to use any of our moves.  Maybe if we had more days to practice.

As a result my bad big toe is acting up pretty badly, so much so, that I've made an appointment with my foot doctor.  Time to get it sorted.

Tourney Bound?

Hey All.  I went back at it last night.  "It" meaning I went for the two hours since my cold has passed and my regular level of fitness has returned.  That level isn't great, but since I wasn't getting thrown or swept I didn't wear myself out getting up over and over again.

First Hour
The work of the moment in class is tournament prep.  March has four tourneys so refinement on kata and sparring practice is the focus in class.  I haven't been to a tourney in years so I'm hoping to get at least one.  So we spent some time on figuring out what kata's I should choose.  I need two.  I ended up picking Wando and Ni Pai Po.  There both part of my last test.  I could remember the pattern, but a lot of the fine detail was left to be desired.  

Second Hour
The class was mostly devoted to refining the two kata.  I ended up working with Olivia most of the evening and had to eat a lot of crow when we worked together.  Comparing against Olivia and Daniel is brutal.  They are way beyond where I'm at.  

Notes
I'm feeling an extreme amount of soreness as a result of trying hard for two hours.  My general fitness is still coming back slowly.  I'll now ruin that by going on vacation Mexico for a week.  At least I'll walk quite a bit in the evenings.  

New Year, Into The Deep End

Hey Tater Tots!

It was time to pull off the proverbial bandage and jump into the deep end of the pool.  Although I was feeling pretty out of shape I decided to go to both hours of class on Wednesday night.  The temperature was cold in Reed's garage so movement was the only way to keep warm.  

First hour
Reed assigned Mia to me.  I was to go over the first two katas Kyoku sho and ni dan, their bunkai and then Oyo.  Thankfully they are very active and I got warm quick.  Half of it was probably due to me being out of shape so mild exertion was fairly stressful.  We did that for the whole hour.  

Second hour
Wednesday is traditionally the time we have sparring practice, but it's the first thing to go by the wayside if someone is prepping for exams.  Since we had a moment to breath in schedule, as it were, it was time to get back to sparring prep.  

Before we started Reed pulled Olivia and me aside to review our four Goju-Ryu kata.  We practiced that for about 15-20 minutes.  Then it was sparring drills for another 20 minutes.  Then it was only to the good stuff.

Sparring
Unfortunately I got the short end of the straw so I only got one fight and it was with Mark.  He, as a rule, is not very aggressive in a match, but for whatever reason he was extremely cagey.  I didn't have any openings to try something interesting (wheel kick) and had to fall back on rushing in.  The final score was 3-1 and I got two cautions for contact.  Not my best work.  

Note
I'm missing a conference when I go on vacation next week.  Which is a bummer.  I've never been able to make one.  Competition season is now warming up and sometime in March is the first one.  I wonder if I can make one for once.

2019 Wrap Up And Review

What a year.  I got my Ni Dan in September, had my 53rd birthday in October, which weirdly signaled my realization of my age, and over the course of the year I lost twenty pounds and have kept it off due to diet.  

In the end of the year, when I should be learning a bunch of Goju-Ryu stuff, I ended up getting waylaid by life.  

At work we started a massive project that meant 10 to 12 hour days, my wife and me started putting a bathroom in the basement (where I'm doing 99% of the work) and as the year started winding up my Mother started going down hill.

As I've mentioned my Mother in past posts, the horror of dementia finally came to a head last month when my Mom got a cold, but previous to that she started experiencing difficulty swallowing.  At a certain point she no longer took water and was able to wave off assistance.  She'd put into her medical requests to take no further assistance so she went down hill in about two days.  My wife was able to get there and hold her hand as she passed away and I was able to get there two days later.  The sense of normal sadness was replaced with relief for her and us.

On the flight home I was surrounded by sick people sneezing and guess what  - I got sick for the last week.  I haven't had that much difficulty throwing off a cold in ages.  So I missed another week of karate as a result.

Last night I finally went back with some sense of concern that I might not be ready to do the whole two hours.  I spent the first hour teaching Kyle Ni Pi Po so I wasn't worn out, but decided to go home early and hit the hay early.  

On a side note I got Sensei a karate clock for his garage.  It was nice to be back and get the laughs and get moving.   

Mop The Floor

Illness and seasonal obligations are making the class fairly slim which can be a nice thing.  It's similar to a private lesson in that the attention is comprehensive and specific.  However it can be grueling.  The intensity is much more so you must come to class focused.  

There was only four of us for both club and class.  During the club I spent most of my time working on my Nidan Kata with our fourteen year old black belt.  She recently passed her exam and tends to get placed with me to help me with my "elementary" kata.  She's incredibly detailed in her reviews.  I feel like I have to nurse my ego at times though.  I'm like four times her age and have been practicing Martial arts for an accumulative time of two decades at the very least.  And then she points out all the stuff I need to correct, which by the way, are all accurate.  I shrivel a bit on the inside.  Shouldn't I better?

In regular class we mostly worked on bunkai after a protracted warm up my MaryAnn.  I'm finding that I'm very inflexible in my back/torso.  When did that happen?  Freakin' Fifties.  You never know what part is freezing up until it sneaks up on you.

Reed is absolutely amazing in that he takes from each of our kata and rotates us through all kinds of techniques.  I was Todd's for his white belt stuff and then he'd be my Uke for the complicated Goju stuff I was doing and back and forth it went.  I can pick stuff fairly easily, but asking Reed for assistance to suss out some tidbit can be painful.  He'll need to do the technique a few times to figure out the question and that means I'm going get my face ground into the floor fairly hard.  I never tap soon enough with him.  

Although I wasn't in any particular pain when I got home I took some Ibuprofen as a prophylactic.  I ended up sleeping nine hours!  I guess it took more out me than I thought!

So Four Monks Walk Into A Bar...

New Kata alert!

Reed told us about a week ago that he wanted to jump ahead a bit in our katas to learn Shisochin.  I gather Goju-Ryu isn't really big on assigning meaning to their kata, but our teacher's teacher was somewhat religious and would connect something to everything.  In this case the kata was about honoring the dead.  And for whatever reason this time of year seems to be a good time to remember folks.  

So while we were learning it last night I asked what the words actually meant.  We know Shi means four, but that was about it.  So while we practiced Reed dug through  
his books and figured out that it meant four monks.  That's about it.  Sigh.  Not much of a story connected because that's the way of their school.

In regular class we practiced and went through the whole thing.  However today I was having problems remembering it, but thankfully I have videos from Chinen to help me remember.  Last night after class and this morning I apparently forgot a section.  Sigh.

Back to practice between teleconferences.  

Watch this guy rip through it.  

Three Shots To The Chin

I remember once reading that if you're in a street fight remember to clench your jaw.  I think the rationale was that it's supposed to suppress a knock punch or broken teeth.  

With this in mind I tried to clench my teeth when I was working with Cooper.  We were doing bunkai for one of his katas which after a small exchange end up with a back fist to my jaw and then two follow up punches to the same spot.  

The first time we did it with contact I got that famous jangle letting me know that I definitely didn't have my jaw tight or that possibly it didn't matter.  Ouch.  

---

At black belt class I thought we were going to learn a new Goju-Ryu kata, but for whatever reasons I got pointed back to learning the second of our Kyoku katas.  I'm learning those to get ready to be a testing partner for Cooper when he goes for his Black belt exam.  I've got three more to go.  The tough part is that each one has more and more bunkai connected to it.  Trying to remember that is difficult. I gather the fifth one has 8 bunkai!

The Nidan isn't much harder than the first pattern wise, but what I did find challenging is that there is a lot of stuff going on.  There's even a new stance, kiden dachi.  It looks like a painful ballet move for me.  Ouch.

That and shoveling tons of mulch had me sleep a nice sleep!  And now to practice.

GoJu Basics

I do go on about the basics, but learning a whole new style certainly has a way of dictating what you need to focus on.

My work life and social obligations have been complex enough that I've only been able to get to class once a week.  I'm always in fear that I'm missing and falling behind, but Reed pointed out that we are way ahead of the schedule because we on a three year program.  Being three kata in means that we are "ahead".  

This means that we work on the basics.  That means it's doing muashauke's and sanchin dachi's until we're blue in the face.  So that's what we'll do and then on the side I keep learning the Shodan kata for a upcoming brownbelt so I can be his partner.  So life feels pretty full.

Of note - part of sanchin is that you a proper stance so that you are strong in certain ways.  To check this another person hits you in certain ways to confirm that.  One of these is a kick to the groin.  Although your knees aren't touching you should be able block enough to stop the shin to get to the groin.

While we were practicing we tried to do the "tests" while we were in our best stances.  One of those tests is that kick.  However the kick is done with the shin, not the foot.  As the shin comes up between the legs the lead knee jams it up and the other thigh traps it.  

Unfortunately Olivia used her foot and went up without friction into my crotch.  Ouch.  Thankfully she didn't put any gas into the kick.  Lesson learned.

---

Side news!  My old buddy Bob Patterson is alive and possibly kicking.  He actually moved to my part of the US.  Who knows - we might get to meet in real life!

Three Plus Kata

Although it was like learning a new kata, Olivia and I learned the variant of Sanchin that has a turn around, but the amount of strikes is the same.  The addition of the turn came with a brutal new leg muscle development scheme.  

Each movement in Goju-ryu is usually accompanied with a slight dip.  I assume this is to force good foot placement and make you stable, but the turns we are required to dip all the way down (as far we can go) to develop our leg muscles.  At the test we are supposed to be back to normal.  Ah tradition.  My legs felt like rubber.  

While we worked on basics in the two hours of class we were introduced to some of the sections in our upcoming kata.  Yikes!  Complicated handwork coming up.

Here I am in all my glory! Cover your eyes.

Cita 111819

Just a quick note about Monday.  I won't be able to go to class tonight, but wanted to note my brain's mood at the time.

I was completely exhausted after a pretty busy weekend and I just haven't got a lot of sleep.  So I look forward to being exhausted from class so I can sleep well on Monday night.  Unfortunately,  I had to work a very long day and ended up only going to the last hour of class.  Not really enough time to get warn out, but nice to get warmed up. 

We worked on basic foot work in Sanshin and went through a couple of katas then I was forwarded over to our new/old student Marsha who was working on Rohai Shodan.  I got to work on refining at kata she did eight years ago.  She was pretty darn good and only needed a bit of my advice.  Awesome. 

Then I worked with Cooper for a bit as his punching dummy.  He's a green belt that Reed wants me to be his test partner for his blackbelt.  That's a bit down the line for him and I have yet to learn all the kata he'll need to know. 

No class tonight for me since I have to go to a memorial.  Sigh.

Two Ways To Skin A Kata

I felt like I just got to the point where I had met the absolute max of what I could take in.  It felt like zero to 100% in one instance though.  

I got to the black belt class early and so did Mia.  So I asked her a few questions about the first in house only kata we have, Kyoku Shodan.  After that she asked if I wanted to learn the second one.  "Sure," I said, thinking that it was going to be as easy as the first one, but to my chagrin the pattern was confounded with additional hand techniques so it immediately turned into a blur.  Later in the regular class we went over the 10 kihons (beginners kata) which added to the mess in my brain.  

When everyone else showed up to the BB class Olivia and were taught the first iteration of Sanchin, the primary kata for Goju Ryu.  This is the one where you'll usually see the guy with the top of his gi off while someone hits him to make sure that their stances are correct.  And here I was doing it and grinning like and idiot while I was it!

Not me pictured

The guy in the video is doing variant B of the kata.  Olivia and I were informed that the Goju schools don't really care what version you're doing, but you better have damn good basics when you buddy starts doing the smackins.  

The problem with this kata being so slow is that keeping place for me becomes a challenge. It's not actually a long kata, any stretch of the imagination.  Three steps forward, five punches at that point, four press downs and two muashiukes going back.  Boom you're done.  However due to the deep breathing and pace I can remember if I'm on the third or fifth move.  Sigh.  And on top of this, tomorrow we learn variant two which has the turn in it.  It's the one I learned four plus years ago.  Good luck brain!   

Rear Hand Blocks First

Well, I thought I was doing pretty good with this first couple of kata from the Goju school and was anxious to move on to Sanchin or the second Kyochu.  Reed shot me down on that and after some review I had a lot to do to refine what I had.  But don't I always! 

Although I've done some Goju in the past, actually putting it into use is tough for me.  One of the biggest pieces is that they block with the back hand and then pass that grab or blocked hand to the lead hand.  It's hard to describe, but if I can put together a video to demo it you'll see what I'm referring to.

After practicing at some length and making errors left and right, Olivia pointed out that we are essentially white belts in a new style.  Ergh, didn't think of that, but so true.

Thankfully everything seems pretty straightforward now, but we'll see. 

A Little GoJu, A Little Shudo

Just a quick progress report today.  

• Gekisai Dai Ichi and Ni are down pretty good
• Bunkai is better, but still needs to be smoother
• Learned Kyoku Shodan
• Bunkai is two separate items
• Oyo is back and forth with the two Bunkai

Pretty easy so far, but I've got Sanshin coming up which I did four or so years ago, but my recollection is a bit fuzzy.  The video below gives you an idea, but we have a slight variation because we are Shudokan doing another school's kata.  Weee.

So much breathing!