Denver Colorado Karate Classes Blog

Monday, July 25, 2005

Toady we visited the Franklin Square, Long Island USSD karate school because our vacation travels took us to the Island. It was a 6pm class so the class was rather small in size but in one hour’s time, we covered a lot of material.

Here’s what we did:

Shaolin Monk punches
Roundhouse kicks while moving forward for about 50 feet each way
New knife block defense maneuver
How to take away a gun while pointed at you
New take down using a sweep
How to lock the opponents elbow to lock up the entire arm
Simulated knife fight

The class was good and we learned a few more things.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

For more information, visit this website www.ussd-colorado.com

This evenings karate class started off with the Sensei asking the class on what would they like to focus on tonight. One person yelled out, “knife blocking techniques” and I chimed in asking for “ground fighting/grappling techniques.

When we got to the ground fighting portion of the class, it appears this part was the favorite amongst the students. It was a quick session on how to immobilize the opponent’s hands and arms, lock in their body with your legs and then how to sweep your leg over their head which makes them flip over like a turtle being turned upside down.

I hope we do more ground fighting in the future.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

I think only about 10 people showed up for Wednesday’s karate class. We started off the class doing “count downs” at number 15 and doing a cycle of 6 exercises. After the cycle is done, you do another cycle of 14. Then 13 and so-on. We got to cycle #3 and then stopped. It had to be 90 degrees inside the dojo after the count down.

We then lined up in two rows facing each other while one person would go down the middle of the two rows practicing a simple side-step move to the left, press the striking hand with the left hand and then follow-up with a right-hand back fist to the face. We did this about 5 times and then had to switch to the right and do everything backwards. I made the transition from left to right pretty good and I hope that means when I get to a brown belt level and have to perform the DM’s and Kenpos in reverse, I can make that transition fairly fast.

Monday, July 11, 2005

This evening’s class centered on our footwork techniques. Basically it was learning how to switch from a left side stance to a right side stance while performing either a punch/kick combination. This practice allowed you to focus on keeping your balance and proper center of gravity so that you maintain a proper stance in order to execute full power. I have noticed lately that I am much better in using multiple hand and kick strikes that the sensei wants us to demonstrate. I’m not 100% accurate in mirroring what the sensei wants us to do but its better than it was 3-4 months ago.

Cardio Kickboxing, karate black belt training, women’s self defense training

Tonight was a warm 88 degrees and about a 5 MPH wind so the Sensei had us run outside around the strip mall complex and then we ended up in an empty part of the parking lot. After about a 10 minute warm-up of various exercises, we partnered up and went through a few fighting techniques.

One technique was using a simple slip step on the attacker to either cut down on the distance so that you can counter back with an effective punch or kick or side step at an angle so that your attacker doesn’t have a straight line to your head or body.

This technique was done in a repetitive motion by assuming an on-guard stance with your feet 12 and 6 o’clock to the attacker. Then you side step into your attacker with a roundhouse kick to the head or chest. Practiced with both the right and left side.

Another technique was slipping to the side of the opponent by blocking their punch and then following up with a spinning punch or kick to either the head or the torso. This was hard to do effectively.

I don’t know if I will ever get in a fight but I do know that if someone does aggressively come at me, I won’t be throwing right and left boxing jabs but now it will be a lung crunching front ball kick to the chest, followed with an upward elbow to the jaw, followed up with a leg sweep bringing the person flat on their back and then a swift downward kick to the face. All without thinking on what to do next.

Noticed the new white belt student hasn’t attended this week. Where did he go?

Dojo closed due to holiday