As an advanced student, your goal is to fine tune your techniques. You know almost 95% if not more of the moves that you will ever need to execute. Maybe you don’t know the order of things, but you know how to get into the different stances, various punches, and so forth.

Since you have all the techniques down and know to execute them, it is YOUR goal to make your techniques clean, crisp, fast, strong, without wasting too much energy. Try and play with your position of your hands from your start position, adjust your stance a little bit here or there, move your toes a little in or out. See what works better for YOU!

This is because we all have different bodies, center of gravity, length of our body parts, etc. So your position of perfection might be different from someone else’s. So align and adjust your techniques a little here or there, try things faster or slower, and play with them. You will see what works best for you and then you will truly be amazing!

Beginners:

On Thursday I passed out some worksheets for your 6 punch series and 6 block series. You also got the worksheet with Ippon #1. All these worksheets have pictures to help you. So practice and use them! They will be on the web soon to download so check back if you haven’t got one.

We ran over some self defense techniques, basic punches, basic blocks, some kicks, and ippon #1. Practice, practice practice!

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Advanced:

Today was an all day kata day. We went over all the little details from the mudra to hidden movements and so forth. So work on your kata if you missed class.

If someone attacks you a lot of people freeze up and get scared. You, as karatika students, will learn to be better than that. The moment someone tries to grab you whether its at a store, gas station, after school, or anywhere its best to yell “FIRE” instead of “Help” Why is that?

The reason its better to yell “FIRE” is because with a “FIRE” most people look around and try to figure out where the fire is so they could leave or do what needs to be done. When you yell “HELP” most people will get scared themselves and run away.

So if you get attacked its best to yell “FIRE” because the chances that someone will look around for where the fire is and notice you is much higher. This way they might be able to help you or get someone that will.

In addition, if you are at a store, or can grab on to objects near by wherever it is, try and knock things down like books, cans of soup, juices, and so forth if you are being grabbed. This helps increase the noise and draw more attention to your situation. Until next time, stay safe and practice.

Beginners

Today we focused on your kicking through an obstacle course. It helped you become more aware of where you are going, making sure you chamber, know your area, and set in a good foundation.

We ended the class with a basic front fall. Remember when doing the fall keep your hands out in front of you and land on your WHOLE fore-arm NOT the wrist. Turn your head before you hit the ground and lift your body off the floor.

Practice your ippons, punches, and blocks.

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Advanced:

We worked on a quick kick exercise to warm us up. Moved to some shadow boxing and basic fighting drills.

The drills we did were:

Basic hands drill (hands only)
Feet only drill
Close quarters sparring (outside the hulla hoop)
Nice and tight sparring (inside the hulla hoop)

Don’t forget your kata, check this website’s earlier posts, and your short and long term goals.

Beginners

Today we started with a quick review doing kicks, punches, and blocks.

Afterwards, we got into some basic self defense techniques. Including defense from a simple wrist grab.

Wrist Grab defense: turn your grabbed hand into a fist. Turn the hand palm up facing you. Grab your attacked hand with the other hand and step and pull back towards you.

Choke hold: Throw your hands up in the air above their elbows, step back, twist and turn away from them

Choke hold: Push in the adams apple with your two fingers twist and turn.

Bear hug: Stomp the foot, pinch, and knee to the groin and palm heel strike to the face.

We ended it with ippon #1 and ippon #2. Read a couple postings below to see the steps for ippon #1.
Remember that ippon #2 has a hammer fist instead of a shuto (knife strike). Thats the only difference.
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Advanced

Today we had a small class but you guys learned a lot and im proud of how fast you improved over the last 2 weeks with your kicks. If you missed class, sorry it was an amazing class with plenty to learn.

We went over some some knee strikes including sideways and front ways driving upwards toward your oppenent to help with your kicks. Also we worked on rechambering your kick and executing a “hard” driven kick first AND SECOND KICK without dropping your chamber, knee, or foot by rechambering it a few inches behind your original chamber after you executed your first kick. This is tricky, so if you have time practice it.

Another drill we worked on was using the elbows on the bags going side ways and diagonal. The thing we focused on was using your body to pivot into the move and elbow and getting your power from behind in the twist. This led us to do a mini drill on pivoting and timing for 5 minutes among the kiba, front stance, and 45.

Finally we combined the kicks, knees, and elbows in a final walking drill. Kick through step down and drive the elbow to the other opponent on the right or left side depending on which foot you land with. Good job everyone!