Archive for February, 2006

Tonights class was small. 6 of us, counting the instructor. Mr. Koener led class tonight. We started out by doing all the basic uke in seiza, of all things. Talk about painful. I thought my legs were gonna need to be amputated. Afterwards, we did a few kata, and then moved on to partner basics up and down the floor. It’s just the way I’ve always said class should be. You’ve got partners, for god’s sake, make use of them. We did outward block, but we did it 4 different ways; concentrating on using the initial crossing motion as the actual block/strike that does the damage. It was very interesting. I found it very difficult to do some of the ways, and easy on the others.

On a more personal note, I’m still finding it quite difficult to do many of the techniques. They do everything completely opposite of the way I’ve been doing them for the last 20 years. It’s hard, but it makes me think… and that’s never bad. I got several personal corrections from the Mr. Koener, and that’s good. I need those corrections to help me distinguish the specifics of the techniques. Of all things, I really think that my cat stance is my biggest problem. I am having severe issues with assuming the correct stance. Much work is needed.

Overall, the class was very good. Nothing spectacularly special, but high quality.

Workout #6 for this year took place in my old stomping grounds: the Mapleton Recreation Center. It was a fun workout, and I got to see my old friends. Additionally, I got to meet my replacement in the Dukes/Dalcher posse, miss Kate (otherwise known as bassprincess).

The class was pretty good. I started by stretching out my back pretty good and then moving into kata. I decided to go through heian sandan with vanirtjones and Kate. We did that several times, then I decided to fulfill my priomise to Matt and take him through a couple of the kata that I’m learning in the new dojo. I think he found them a little strange, but enjoyed them quite a bit. At one point, I got a good laugh, as shotobushi looked over at us and said something like, “what are you doing doing Goju ryu kata now.” I was wondering if I’d do it well enough for him to recognize it. The second kata in Mastubayashi ryu is called Fukyugata Ni. It’s the same kata that Goju students learn as Geikisai. Anyway, it’s not that funny, I guess, but I found it humorous.

After the kata, we all went up on the stage and sparred for about an hour. I did better than I thought I would, and got in some good hits myself in addition to all the good hits I took. Garlsan is really improving. I’d have to say that he’s one of the best in the dojo now. His timing is becoming VERY good. I got to spar with him quite a bit, before getting across from Kate. Unfortunately, her first lesson in the Barbecueguy-ryu landed her flat on her back. *blush* Sorry bout that. I don’t usually do that to lower ranks the first time I spar with them. Then, I got across from Mike and he proceeded to impale my kidneys upon his mghty reverse punch.

It was a good class, and it’s always good to see everyone. Hopefully I’ll be able to get in some more training with them this year.

p.s. those new heaters in the rec center kicks serious fiery ass!

Thursday nights class was both fun and exhausting. We spent most of the time doing partner drills back and forth across the floor. Essentially, we were doing 5-time attack for the evening. This is still difficult to me in this dojo, because they essentially do ALL of their blocking exactly the opposite of the way Shotokan folks do it. It’s not physically difficult, but mentally. I do struggle with knife-hand block, though, because it is performed from cat stance. I find myself doing the hand motions ok, but he feet are all discombobulated. We did have a brief Odewalt moment. At one point, one of the black belts asked if he could interject something. He then proceeded to ramble on about something that had absolutely nothing, zip, nada, Nada 3 to do with what we were working on. I almost chuckled out loud, but was able to maintain my composure.

After class, I somehow ended up sparring with one of the brown belts (Ed). I say somehow, because there was no real starting point. It just seemed like suddenly I noticed that we were sparring. We sparred for a good 30-35 minutes non-stop. I was absolutely smoked, and was getting my a$$ handed to me. That’s the fun thing about dojo sparring. If it were a real fight, I’d simply bulldoze Ed over and pummell him into oblivion. However, that’s not the point of sparring. Instead, was continuously being battered about the brow with these very quick and darting backfist strikes. The worst part was that I saw every one of them coming, and was unable to react. I did get in a few good shots of my own, but it was painfully obvious how far I have to go to get back to where I used to be.

A little humility is always good for the soul.

[alternative title]How many more people around me are gonna die?

In the last 5 years, I’ve lost the following people who were fairly close to me:
My father-n-law.
My brother.
My step-brother’s mother.
My step-grandmother.
My mother.
My uncle Bill.
My mother-n-laws boyfriend of several years.
Ann’s aunt Shirley passed just this morning from cancer.

This morning, my father was diagnosed with lung and brain cancer. Details aren’t completely clear yet, but he has 2 tumors in his head and another large mass in his lungs. He has the same symptoms as Ann’s dad had when he died of the same thing. I don’t know how long dad’s got, but most people die within 3 months of being diagnosed with this type of tumor.

Seriously. This sucks ass!

Last nights class was pretty fun. Sensei Walker led warm-ups and the full class for the first time since I’ve been there. He started out with a very difficult warm-up session. I don’t recall everything we did, but the culmination was this bizarre form of push-up where you lie on your stomach, hands over your head, fully stretched out, and then raise yourself off the ground and hold it for a length of time with all your weight supported on your toes and finger tips. Needless to say, my fat ass couldn’t accomplish this bit of evil trickery; but I sure as hell gave it a go.

The meat & potatoes of the class was kata. We went through all the Matsubayashi kata except Kusanku and Gojushiho. They seemed to be in no particular order. We’d do one of the beginning kata, then and advanced one or two. It was quite fun and difficult for me. I’m still learning the kata, and we were’t exactly going slowly. It was a good workout. I was thoroughly drenched by the time we got done doing kata. Afterwords, we did some partner drills for “self defense”. The techniques were a little “flashy” for me, but they certainly worked; as he used me to demonstrate several of them. It was fun.

After class, I stayed around for almost an hour and listened to Sensei Walker tell war stories of his tournament days. He was quite good in his younger days (and still is). He won several big championships and such. The highlight of the evening was listening to him tell the stories of getting his behind kicked by Billy Blanks. Apparently, he and Billy fought on the tournament circuit together for several years, and he lost the championship match to Billy twice. One time, Billy did an armless somersault that culminated in kicking Sensei Walker right square in the face. Apparently, the two are still quite good friends to this day.

I think I enjoyed this part of last night so much because it reminded me so much of the nights sitting around drinking a few cold ones and listening to Sensei Hartman, Evans, Barclay, and Jennings talk about the “good ole days” of karate. Sometimes I really think that those people starting to train now are missing out on something special. Karate isn’t necessarily “worse” than it was 20 years ago, it’s just different.

oh well. good night

Thursday nights class was very reminiscent of a classical Sensei Brewer kata workout. The instructor for the class decided that since everyone in the room was a brown belt or higher except for the 1 green belt (and the shotokan black belt, and the other black belt that hasn’t trained in 10 years), that we would just go through all of the matsubayashi kata slowly, one movement per count. By the third kata, the pace of the kata had increased noticably. By the end of the pinan kata, the only person able to keep up with the instructor was… well.. the instructor. Everyone else was lost. He had long past the one movement per count mode and was pretty much just doing the kata at whatever speed he felt like. It was quite humorous, but also fun. I wouldn’t say I learned too much for the night, but I was sweating pretty good.

Afterwards, I was sorta put on the spot by one of the black belts who felt it would be interesting to see some of the famous shotokan “parry” techniques. I was a little bit embarrassed, as I don’t like being put on the spot, but also because we don’t really do things that much differently than these folks. I even said to them, “I don’t know what you want to see, we don’t do things all that different.” But, I was on the spot anyways.

The instructor had one of the brown belts do one-time attack with me. Ed (the brown belt) punched at me with a right lunge punch, and I instictively shifted to the left and did a right hand outward block with a downward back handed pressing block. It was actually pretty cool, and it looked good too. I countered with a classic reverse punch to the ribs. The Mr. Walker then asked me, “what next”? I kinda gave him the deer in the headlight look, to which he explained to me that he requires a minimum of 2 counters to every attack. I went said, “oh, this,” and foot swept the guy. Everyone kinda laughed, and Mr. Walker said something like, “that works. I was expecting a ridge hand though.”

Then it was my turn to attack the Ed. I did so, and he about fell over backwards trying to avoid me. Mr. Walker told me that I was too nice and that he woulda hit him in the face for failing to block. Then he told Ed that I was being extremely nice and that he could tell I was holding back. This was true, though. I coulda blasted Ed at will; however, I’m still feeling everyone out and didn’t wanna be an a$$ by showing off. Also Ed’s a nice guy, and I didn’t wanna bust his nose or anything.

After the Ed and I finished doing the one-time examples, Mr. Walker started asking my why I shifted that way, what advantages it gave me over shifting the other way, why I chose my targets that way, what other options there were, etc. We basically just spent some time discussing tactical situations and stuff like that. It was pretty interesting, and I think everyone actually learned something.

I’m looking forward to tonights class. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to train karate in a classroom setting. I’m still a little worried that they’re gonna want me to spar sometime soon. My targetting and reflex systems are still a litte outta wack. I feel like that scene in RoboCop where Murphy couldn’t hit the can’s with his targetting system and needed his partner to help him out.

http://www.despair.com/spin.html

I spent most of the weekend watching videos & trying to memorize fukyu 1 & 2 (watch how you pronounce them) so that I wouldn’t feel like such a retard in class last night. Fortunately it worked. I even managed to get a few compliments from the instructor last night. At one point, he said something like: I know your instructors would be giving you a hard time for that high stance, but that looks exactly like a Matsubayashi front stance. To be honest, I wasn’t all that high. I was just in my “normal” front stance. But, it was nice to get a compliment; even if it was sorta back-handed.

I still feel really awkward with the stances. In general, we (shotokaners) tend to use front stance, back stance, and horse stance almost exclusively. These folks use “walking” stance, cat stance, and shikodachi almost exclusively. They use front stance a bit too, but not much. I was also introduced to a stance they call “jigotai”. It resembles sochin a LOT. Essentially you get into back stance, turn your front foot in about 45, and then shift your weight to about 50/50.

Another interesting point of the night was doing their version of oizuki. I’ve heard from several people I correspond with in other styles that they do oizuki from shikodachi. I’ve been stumped by this for a couple years. I’ve never actually been able to figure out how one would do such a thing. Imagine trying to do what we call oizuki in kibadachi. What I discovered last night is that their oizuki is not what we would call oizuki. The closest thing that I can equate it to is the palm heel strike performed in kibadachi in jion and jutte kata. Change the palm heels to punches, and you have what they call oizuki. Needless to say, I felt like a retarded fish out of water doing that one. I don’t think I did a correct one all night.

On the kata front, I did much better. Before class, I did all the Heian kata once. Then during class we did fukyu 1, 2 & 3 several times. I actually did them with a modicum of skill. My only sticking point is transitioning from low to high to low to high stances all the time. I’m so shotokon-ditioned to remain low all the time. But, it is making me work to pay attention to the details. I’ve always prided myself on attention to detail in kata, but I’ve really neglected that in the last couple years.

I haven’t sparred with any of their people yet. To be honest I’m still a little scared too. I’m sure that one of us will get hurt if I do. I reactions are off just enough, and their students are just dangerous enough that I’m liable to take an unwelcome shot without even reacting. On the other side of the coin, my control is off enough (har, har, har. I can hear you guys lauging and saying “what control”) that I’m liable to pop someone pretty good. Additionally, I don’t think our sparring gear would even qualify with what they consider sparring gear. They wear the neoprene booties, fist covers, and headgear. Man I hate that stuff. I hope they don’t expect me to buy or wear any of that crap.

For those of you interested, here is a link to kata that I will be expected to learn: kata. You’ll have to scroll down to see the kata.

This is a pretty good representation of the kata. As you (those of you who are shotkaners) will see, most of the kata are just close enough to be recognizable; and just different enough to be a pain. Fortunately, some of them are almost unrecognizable. Those should not pose as much diffuculty. I personally liked watching the Passai video. It’s obvious to see parts of both Bassai dai and sho in it. The Anaku and Rohai kata are the hardest for me to determine the Shotokan counterpart for. I have been told in the past that Rohai is what we would call Meikyo nidan (apparently there is more than one version of Meikyo).