February Turmoil, something positive and light at the end of the Tunnel

The joys of being able to work from home are becoming a bit thin now.  Being on the "high risk" list, I realise I am much luckier than many in having a job I can do from home and an employer who allows it, but shielding effectively for almost a year is beginning to take it's toll.

Kata Imperfect -0102

Family issues and increasing work demands have made it harder to train during the winter months, with dark nights, cold weather and having neighbours who have scant regard for the Covid rules make me uncomfortable in training outdoors, even when the light is good. My Sensei have been really helpful in offering Zoom lessons all the way through this pandemic.

Monday wasn't a good day 0202

However, the demands of work have made many of the evening lessons unavailable to me.   What made it worse was that I could hear my son training downstairs and I honestly wanted to join in 😞😞  

Kata after the lesson 0402

The mental tolls of nearly a year continuously at home have also had an effect.  The boundaries have become more blurred, with home intruding on work and vice versa.  At times, karate has been the only anchor point in a sometimes unstable environment.   Lesson this month included variations upon famililar themes, with the quadrant drill featuring again.  Shadow sparring, many variations of teisho strikes, some paired work, striking at different heights, lunging stances to disrupt and take the opponents space all featured alongside kata.

Snow kata 0902

There were three notable things from February which will definitely make it hard to forget though, all on the more positive side of things: 

1. In snowed, so I got to do kata in the Snow for the first time
2. Got my first Covid-19 jab ( 11th Feb) so there is light at the end of the tunnel (and my Sensei allowed me to do Seisan in lesson whilst in self isolation)
3. There was an interesting session with Andreas Quast, re-affirming the earliest known performed kata were Kusanku and Passai (around 1849) and discussing the undocumented Japanese influence on Okinawan culture ands martial arts. 

18 Feb - Rusty run through

When things are a struggle small achievements or good moments take on a bigger significance, and standout moments become milestones.  The opportunity to do kata in the snow I would have taken anytime, but that it happened during lockdown made it feel more special. 

23 Feb Goju kata

Getting vaccinated is a proper landmark, it is the first small opening onto the light at the end of the tunnel.  Training in our bedroom was a challenge (small space), but the opportunity to do a different kata during lesson time made it memorable for a good reason.  Finally, the opportunity to participate in a session of any sort with Andreas Quast is always a pleasure as there is always something new to learn about the history of karate.

4th February Lesson Outtakes

I hope for better things in the future.  If you have got this far thank you for reading.

REY 24/03/2021

04/02/2021
Shadow sparring, using specific combinations, kata combinations.
Moving to the side in sparring.  some pairwork on techniques

06/02/2021
Fundamentals, padwork (striking whist circling, jodan, chudan, gidan), kata

11 Feb - An aide memoire

11/02/2021
Teisho drills, straight reverse teisho, upper cut reverse teisho, hooking teisho, using hips to generate power. First is long range to close the distance, next two are close range.   Straight reverse teisho, crash, upper cut reverse teisho.
Use of lunging stances with front knee strike to disrupt:  Zenkutsu dachi, Shiko dachi (possible drag over step behind leg and punch to finish), Nekko achi dachi (followed by front kick to groin)

13 Feb- an unusual kata for a lesson - Seisan

13/02/2021
Addition to first teisho drill, straight reverse teisho, upper cut reverse teisho (broken energy), hooking teisho, reverse elbow strike (continuous energy).  Kata (including Seisan for me), Short teisho pinan  drill: glanching reverse teisho, front hand grab and step through, rotating forearm strike.

18/02/20201
Fundamentals, padwork, kata

20 Feb- Continuous kata during the lesson

20/02/2021
Quadrant drill, first 6 elements, continuous kata, pad drill from the Pinans

A private talk with Andreas Quast

27th and 28th Feb: Weekend Workouts

27/02/2021

Jamie Clubb lesson - anti abduction, including the bystander effect

A different Naihanchi

My Sensei tell me that it's good to practice Naihanchi in different ways, slow, fast, arms only, footwork only, open handed,etc.  Also that the elements remain the same, but in a real world situation can be applied as different techniques and will rarely be used in the order in which we train them.

With that in mind, I decided to take a look at a different version of Naihanchi from my own, Tachimura no Naihanchi, which looks substantially different to my own.  A version is shown in the link below, by Noah Legel.

Tachimura no Naihanchi (Noah Legel)

I decided the easiest way to do this was first of all to try to break it down by studying the video several times and this is what I came up with (please excuse the fact that I don't know all the technical terms):

Formal opening,
Look to left
right foot (rf) step over, left foot (lf) to Naihanchi dachi
Left hand (lh) open gidan uke, right hand (rh) hikate
Rh punch across, lh hikate
Look to right
Rh open gidan uke
Lh punch across, rh hikate
Lf step over, rf to Naihanchi dachi
Look forward
Lh chudan-tsuki, mark out, rh back fist, left arm comes up to support
(substitute with lh chudan-tsuki, double block, rh back fist)
Look to right, rf wave kick, rh chudan-tsuki to the side
Look to left, lf wave kick, lh pull in to hip, coupled to rh
Look to right, double punch, rh under left, rh shuto uke, lh hikate, lh elbow strike to rh clasp
Look to left, lh open gidan uke, rh hikate
Rh punch across, lh hikate
Rf step across, lf to Naihanchi dachi
Rh chudan-tsuki, mark out, lh back fist, rh comes up to support
(substitute with rh chudan-tsuki, double block, lh back fist)
Look to left, lf wave kick, lh chudan-tsuki to the side
Look to right, rh wave kick, rh pull in to hip, coupled to lh
Look to the left, double punch, lh under right, ln shuto uke, rh elbow strike to lh clasp
Look to right
Rh open gidan uke
Lh punch across, rh hikate
Lf step over, rf to Naihanchi dachi
Look forward
Lh chudan-tsuki, mark out, rh back fist, left arm comes up to support
(substitute with lh chudan-tsuki, double block, rh back fist)
Look to right, rf wave kick, rh chudan-tsuki to the side
Look to left, lf wave kick, lh pull in to hip, coupled to rh
Look to right, double punch
Formal close

I then decided to try to put it back together with the individual elements picked out from the version of the kata I know. There are a couple of substitutions indicated as above, where I wasn't too confident of, and in no way was I going to try to emulate the different stepping of Tachimura no Naihanchi.

This is what I came up with:

Elements of Tachimura no Naihanchi

Which I then compared ro what I do in the version of Naihanchi Shodan that I practice:

Naihanchi Shodan (Shorin Ryu)

In essence the core sequences frim Gedan uke to double punch are much the same, but the variations which make them look so different are the start sequence, direction of travel and number of repetitions of the core sequence.  The Shorin Ryu version goes:

Start to the right, shuto uke, elbow strike

Core sequence to the left, shuto uke, elbow strike

Core sequence to the right

The Tachimura no Naihanchi version goes:

Start to the left, gedan uke (open hand), punch across

Core sequence to the right, shuto uke, elbow strike

Core sequence to the left, shuto uke, elbow strike

Core sequence to the right

Compared to the different versions of some kata, such as Seisan, although they might look different in appearance, there is actually very little difference in content. Appearances can be deceptive, for in fact when the Shorin Ryu kata and Tachimura kata are broken down like this, it can be seen that the Shorin Ryu version element wise is exactly the same from the shuto uke going to the right.

Start to the left, gedan uke (open hand), punch across

Core sequence to the right, shuto uke, elbow strike

Core sequence to the left, shuto uke, elbow strike

Core sequence to the right  

Tachimura no Naihanchi only
Shorin Ryu and Tachimura Naihanchis

I wonder why I didn't see that in the first place, but probably because it is partly masked by the visible differences in the stepping, the dropping stances in the gedan strikes and the variation in the arm techniques.

So just to conclude, thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read this, and hope it might have been of some small interest.