Karate helping to deal with a heart condition:
Karate fighting, Cardiovascular workout, confidence, rebuilding stamina, fun, self defence, over 50s but not only, over 50, is it too late, exercise, nerd, okinawa karate, shorin ryu, full contact karate, heart, aging
I think it fair to say that many people who have practiced martial arts originally learnt indoors and in later years, on mats. If we're talking karate, then it will have been in Gi and barefoot. If your dojo leans towards self defence, it will have include thinks like knees and low kicks.
However, "real world", if you ever have to use your learnt skills, it won't be in a controlled environment, barefoot and on a flat surface. Students are obviously expected to practice on their own, and hopefully some of that would be outdoors and uneven surfaces with shoes on.
My personal favourite strike is with the knee, but that can be followed up by another one from natural instinct for me, a stomping kick, which I believe would be much more effective with shoes off rather than on. (Blame my Sensei and Naihanchi for these choices.)
The dojo in which I learnt includes outdoor lessons in normal clothing as a part of their training, as well as the more typical dojo lessons. Is this a common practice? Also, are there any specific aims in the teaching of lessons outdoors, other than those already suggested?
Things are obviously staring to move on with regard to the current situation. With my work, we are preparing for offices across Europe to re-open, but for me I'm in a state of Limbo. It'd fairly certain my son won't be going back to School until September at the earliest. For me, I don't really know what will be happening for the next few months or even until the end of the year.
Warm down kata 0806
What is required for work the next few months is already mapped out and 95% percent of the facets of my work can be done from home, until the main London office becomes re-occupied. That isn'yt expected to be until maybe mid-August at the earliest. However, as I am on the list of people who are expected to shield, they have only given an indication of what is expected until the end of the month. That gives me a kind of limbo that means just now I am killing time until the point that I do know something more definite. I many ways I am lucky, but I don't think anyone finds the limbo easy to deal with.
Kihons and kata
Karate is my touchstone for both physical and mental health, and overcoming the self-doubts caused the comments of others was an important thing. Now I can carry on focusing on something I really enjoy doing, Due to the lack of room both inside and outside, for two people to train without close contact, I now take it in turns with my son, when we can, to make use of the outside, that seems to be working better too for both of us.
After the rain
Towards the end of last week, I got a mail about something I had to check that I had been worrying about, and to be honest I was a bit nervous about looking to see how bad something was (not health or jobwise fortunately). Missing out on Karate on the Saturday morning didn't help, but at least I made up for it with a training session based upon some ideas from my Sensei in the afternoon, and then on Sunday we had the Karate for Mental Health webinar to foucus on. Some really excellent teachers there, and some good material to work on.
After the lesson (1106)
So today I took a look at what it was that was worrying me, as I have come to appreciate, sticking your head in the sand when decisions have to be made just doesn't work, Things were as bad as I thought they might be, maybe a bit worse. However, it was something I had anticipated and now I just have to get on with dealing with it, and it should be manageable. There is actually a big release when you face up to something you have to deal with. So felt a lot less stressed going into today;s lesson which was a really good workout with a lot of sweat......
1306 Practice
So now to get on with things, work, karate, and those aspects of life that can be worked on, and for the rest it remains one day at a time.
Karate for Mental Health 14 06 20
Kata to coll down after today's lesson (1506)
Lessons and sessions 0806 Fundamentals punches, ukes, kicks, including tobi mai geri, kihon gata to Nanadan (7th), both sides Naihanchi Shodan 1106 Kata Pad work - punch. elbow, knee, hammerfist, palm strike, head butt 1306 Missed lesson - did short session based on instruction from my Sensei 3x1 minute shadow work rounds
1st round simple combos
2nd round clinch range strikes
3rd round ground techniques
1406 Seminar on Karate for Mental Health Pad work - Brian Bates Kata - Chris Hanson Deep breathing - Don Came Discussion - Les Bubka 1506 Zenkutsu dachi steps and steps with punches Shiko dachi steps Naihanchi Dachi steps Kata The three Naihanchis, performance on Shodan and Nidan Pad work - punch, palm, hammer fist, then puch, palm, palm, hammerfist combinatiom Pad work, elbow strikes
Today's lesson was mostly about kata. After a 15 minute warm up, Mokosu and the formal opening of the lesson, it was mostly kata. We went through the whole range of our family'srepertoire up to Passai Sho. All of the Naihanchi kata were done step by step then performance if you know the kata. The rest were follow the instructor as best you can then perform your highest kata. That led to quite a lot of performances of Naihanchi Nidan.
All in all, an absolutely necessary lesson and what a beautiful day to practice kata, but not much to blog on, so I decided to go through the kata I do and why I do them
Naihanchi Shodan and Nidan are the two I can do a performance of in my style. I know the bones of Sandan but they are pretty bare just now. As well as finding Naihanchi Shodan a most compelling kata, and one which is acknowledged to be one of, if not the, best fighting systems in karate, all the Naihanchis are needed for grading. My Sensei says my Shodan has improved sufficiently to formally start working on Nidan, so these are the two kata I formally practice in the dojo and as a part of our online sessions.
Naihanchi Shodan and Nidan
Tensho is another kata I practice. I have been taught this as a kata for breathing exercise by Noah Legel. The Goju Ryu styles of kata employ controlled rather than natural breathing in their execution, for example breathe in on the draw back, exhale fully on the punch, or on the slower parts of the kata, breathe in slowly on the outward part of the movement and breathe out slowly but fully on the return part of the movement. I like to be able to do it just before and after each session, or whenever I need to take a deep breath, which can be quite a lot at the moment being in a 90 day lockdown. On top of this it has also been a challenge to be able to learn an advanced kata from another style, so for me this one works on two levels.
Tensho
Naihanchi Shodan slow, Naihanchi Shodan hontai and Naihanchi Sandan. Are the other three kata or variations I perform. Naihanchi Shodan slow was the first variation of a kata I learned, working with Robey Jenkins and based on tai chi. This was for gentle cardio exercise, but I also found to be good for relaxation and actually has helped in performing my actual kata.
The hontai version of Naihanchi Shodan isn't at all necessary, but I'm a leftie so I wanted to give it a try, However, since looking into the roots of Naihanchi (See Nerd life: Tne origins of Naihanchi) I think this is actually closer to the original version than the usual version we do, so it's like a living bit of history.☺☺☺
Naihanchi Sandan is there because I have managed to learn the frame of the kata, and I want to keep it in my repetoire until such time as it's needed.
I have been practicing Naihanchi Shodan for around 5 months now. Given everything that is going on in my life just now I wanted to do something positive for myself and show that practicing does help you improve things. This is where doing this blog helps. I have had myself videoed several times doing the Kata (thank you to Jerome Che-A-Tow, my wife and my son) and the results are given below:
February / March 2019
March 2019 - under competition pressure
April 2019
June 2019
August 2019
I think I have improved a lot. The competition video showed that I struggled under pressure at that point, but in general I think what I do now is more confident, crisper and has more intent. Still a lot of room for improvement, including getting rid of that horrible shoulder dip, but getting there 😊
Today was a challenging day in the dojo, but an interesting one too. From a personal point of view, not at my best due to things going on around me. So not enough sleep and a bit too much stress make for a not too sharp me, but I tried to work through it.
We did a slightly different warm up today, with some different stretches, then in to basics. We went through all the punches, kicks and receiving techniques, then started to look at a relatively new drill. We worked through it stage by stage, both with and without pads. Once a particular element was covered, it was added to the flow drill. After that, at each point we needed to repeat the key elements just looked at, then perform the flow drill from the start to the point we had just got to. At the end point of the main lesson, each pair was asked to perform the flow drill to see how much we had learnt. I lost it round about the forearm strike. The full drill is given in outline below; thank you Ben for the corrections 😊😊. #1 LH jab #2 RH parry, head to right #1 RH cross #2 LH parry, head to left #1 LH hook #2 Step in, two handed upper arm block and spread (Nidan) #1 RH hammer fist #2 Step back, cross arm block #1 LH hook #2 Step in, two handed upper arm block, inc LH shuto to neck #1 RH hook #2 Step back to cat stance, LH block #1 LH backfist #2 RH receive #1 Forearm strike #2 Naihanchi block, LH palm up RH palm down #1 LH uppercut to ribs#2 RH Gedan Uke #1 RH uppercut to ribs#2 LH Gedan Uke #1 LH haito to kneck #1 RH haito to kneck #1 grasp behind kneck, using thumbs as 5th finger (gable lock) #1 pull head down switch leg back #1 left knee strike #1 switch legs, right knee strike #2 Head up, break out, link hands #1 head butt The drill was both challenging and fun 😊😊. For the last part of the lesson we did bo work, the first 6 kihon katas. As there were a good few people, we had to split into two groups to accommodate us all, but it was fun. So much so, that me and my son went to the park later to practice. Here i am doing kihon Katas Godan and Rokadan (badly but enthusiastically) 😊😊.
When the weather is pleasant, practicing is best done out of doors. Yesterday was such an evening, so I did my kata exercise outside 😊
I need to work on my Naihanchi dachi stance, my knees are bent, but that gap is much more than two fists. Not the smoothest transitions either, but my son thinks I'm improving 😊. The nicest place to practice around where I live is in a park, as the setting helps make you feel good:
And to practice bo-work the only place I can go is outside, as indoors i would end up breaking something or end up bringing down the light fittings:
Practicing outside gives you the space to move, and I think is just purely and simply more enjoyable 😊😊😊
