Denver Colorado Karate Classes Blog

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Five students showed up for tonights adult karate class. One black belt, 2 green/brown’s, a blue belt and one white belt.

After the warm-ups, we hit the parking lot to learn some arm grab techniques. Then followed up with a gun technique. Some of the arm grabs would work fairly well to the unsuspecting attacker.

We headed back inside and the Sensei announced we would do a review of our DM’s. He called out DM 2 and I did #5. He called out DM 5 and I did #2. It was one of those nights.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Instead of the usual jumping jacks, squats, push-ups, crunch/reverse crunches, lunges, and stretching, we did squats and push-ups along with doing Pinan #1 in between sets.

What made the Pinan different was that we had to do a parry downward block instead of a #2 block and then either a front ball kick or roundhouse kick, followed with spear hand or backfist.

I think the hardest part was trying to do a parry block. Everything else seemed to fit into place.

After that, we formed 3 lines of 4 people and the person at the head of the line had to do all of their DM’s. I have 19 and when I was done, it seemed like I forgot to do one or two. I realized I forgot to do #12 and #16. I did all of them OK except for #13 because I started out doing a right over left cross-over instead of just stepping forward with the left foot.

Then picked one DM that needed the most work and it had to be done 20 times. I picked #13 since I flubbed that one.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

After a decent warm-up, we worked the pads tonight for our kicks. The first set of pad work was getting into a side horse stance and doing a simple side blade kick, right and left side. Reads easy than it is. The natural tendency is to do a small shuffle step.

Then we hit the pads doing the right and left side, side horse shuffle step and then right and left roundhouse kicks. That’s a lot of kicks in a 40 minute period.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Just didn’t feel up to giving it 110% tonight for whatever reason. This happens once every 20 karate classes.

To warm-up, we ran a lap around the parking lot. I already ran some miles during lunch time today so this was a piece of cake. Once inside, the usual calisthenics.

Then we paired up by doing all of our DM’s just to warm-up. After the warm-up, we formed to dragon circles. I was in the green/brown and up belt circle and I volunteered to go first. I recollect I did DM 3, 6, 7, 15, 18 and I did a couple of improvised ones. It was a so-so performance.

After everybody went once, I had the opportunity to go again. This time I did DM 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 ,9, 12, 15 and 18. A little better mix than the previous time.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Tonights karate class centered on developing our basic kicks while still using some footwork and working in some combinations.

Monday, April 10, 2006

I didn’t realize that I missed a few karate class Blog entries the last couple of weeks. So tonight I’ll do one Blog entry that will recap the missing dates

Monday, March 27 - I went to the adult class and have no recollection on the specifics of the training
Wednesday, March 29 - I went to the class, no memory of what we did
Monday, April 3 - This is a recurring theme.
Wednesday, April 5 - Didn’t go, debate preparation

Monday, April 1o - Tonight’s class focused on our hand strikes with a training partner and then with pads. With the training partner, we focused on a few of our lower number DM’s that required a hand strike. Foot work became important. Then we moved on to the pads while doing a right and left front punch, roundhouse/cross with both hands and a backfist with and without follow-through. To get power, rotating the feet to get the hips open became important.