Denver Colorado Karate Classes Blog

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Tonight’s adult karate training consisted of doing the following:

- multiple hand strike combinations using right and left hands
- multiple leg kick combinations using right and left legs
- partnered up to practice our #1-1o newly learned Kempos

Monday, March 26, 2007

Tonight I was in the rare frontline/right corner lead position. When it came to do push-up, I like to take my time to do clean ones. When I got to push-up count 17 or 18, I can hear some of the other students on number 20 or 21. What’s with that? Can’t they follow the lead position?

After warm-ups, we grouped into 3’s to do some pad work. The order of the exercises were as follows:
- front ball
- stepping stool
- side blade
- roundhouse
- hook kick

10 on each leg so that’s a 100 kicks in total.

Then we paired off to do our DM’s one for one. That’s 21 DM’s in total. Add in our new Kempos and that’s a lot of work in 45 minutes.
To cap off the night, we lined up to do our Forms starting with Pinan 1 and 2, followed by Kata 1 and 2, back to Pinan 3 and then Stature of the Crane. Being so close to the right corner walls was disorienting when doing Kata 2 since multiple angles are involved but I came through OK.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

I missed Monday’s karate class because I was in NYC for 4-days. Tonights class was designed to test our karate comprehension skills. After the warm-ups, the Sensei would call out (for example), #1 arm block, left hand thrust punch to the ribs, right side iron fortress, followed with a left hand, right to left tigers rake to the face followed by a right hand right to left tiger’s rake to the face. Then you do this left handed going in the opposite direction. We would do about 8 reps and they we would whole new set of strikes. I would say I did about 80% of the technique without pause or miscue.

Then we partnered up to do the same type of exercise with someone doing a roundhouse on you by opening the gate to the left side, iron fortress trap, grabbing left wrist, palm heel to the face, right thrust to the solar and then followed with a Kempo #9 sweep.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

I neglected to make an immediate entry so now I am tryingto recollect what we did over a week ago in karate class. Basically we were concentrating on assembling a coordinated attach/movement using multiple hand and foot strikes. We partnered up and we did some new Kempo techniques. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 and 9.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Before the class started, the Sensei told me that the Master at the brown belt test complimented on my improvement on my Forms which is nice to hear.

Tonight’s adult karate class started off with some warm-ups and then into some coordination drills. The first one was doing some stationary punch combos on the right and left sides. I did so-so on the right side and nailed it when starting off on left side.

Then we lined up to do some moving punch and kick combos across the dojo floor. The hardest part was trying to remember the actual order of the kicks when 5 kicks were involved. The last set we did started off with a stepping stool, right round house, right rear back kick, crescent kick and then ending with a reverse crescent kick. The point of the exercise is to see how well we can grasp and interpret the routines and then apply them without having to stop and analyze each move.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Took my 2nd degree belt test. Calf started acting up within 5 minutes of the test and was a constant physical distraction. It didn’t inhibit me from doing material though. The calf just hurt all day.

On Thursday, March 2, I did a one hour private class to do a full review of my forms, DM’s and Kempo’s. All went well with a few tweaks here and there. Then on Sunday, it seems my left calf was reinjured again and it prevented me from walking anything past 1/4 of a mile. Feels like severe shin splints. So this week I am missing karate classes in order to heal and be 100% ready for Saturday’s belt test. As I write this blog entry, I intend to go to the dojo before the adult class so I can do a very light review.