Tora Shotokan Seminar with Ana Xepapas Sensei Pt. II

Day two of the seminar.

I arrived with a boken tucked under my arm and initially felt awesome. Of course, it was a borrowed boken, and I was returning it to its owner, but that didn't stop the fact that I was carrying a wooden sword like a boss to, and carrying it to karate.

I had the same problems as I did the previous day. I still struggled with hand/feet coordination, not so much with punches and kicks this time as with blocks. I realised that the hand that is blocking should end up on the same side is the front leg, but start on the opposite. It's like one is covering the area in which is not protected by virtue of the other hand punching.

I identified another weakness of mine: I have the flexibility of a dead branch that has been left for a day. Dead branches that have just been cut are a little bit like dead animals: They still have a lot of fluid in them and are therefore relatively flexible. I am still alive, of course, but my flexibility is atrocious.

My left arm was feeling like death from playing Twister the previous night with the other karateka. supporting my whole body weight on the left arm while outmanoeuvring my friends on the floor had been fun, but the sore shoulder and arm not so much.

It was a hot day. We started off with 5 sets of running on the spot, high jumps, star clap jumps and mountain climbers, and before we knew it we were all dripping with sweat.

The seminar was still awesome. I especially enjoyed doing Heian Shoudan in different ways and increasing my knowledge of Heian Nidan and Sandan. When we formed into groups and did the katas in sync, I was forced to recognise that even though I do need to work on my timing, I am capable of ending the kata in the same position I started. When we had the brown belts use punching pads against us as we did our katas, we got to see the practical applications of the movements.

Practical application of Heian Shoudan

• Begin in the position of holding two katanas diagonally across one another, as though ready to fend off attacks from both sides.
• View attacker from the side, face them.
• Imagining that one's feet are on tracks shoulder-width apart, lunge the forward leg and let the back knee bend a little, with the back foot at a 35° angle, while...
• Swinging the attacking arm diagonally down, across and over the body, allowing range of motion over the largest possible area; twisting the edge of the arm in case contact is made and a small pushing away motion can be made. Congratulations: Gedan berai completed.
• Lunge forward again while...
• Moving the hikite hand into a punch, hip into square and knee strait (all at the same time). The Senseis always tell us to use the earth, and I take that to mean that I need to kick the ground with my foot before I can kick my opponent with it.
• There are now attackers behind you. So bend the knees, perform a 180°pivot while doing gedan berai again.
• The approaching enemy was too far for gedan berai to be effective and has grabbed your striking arm. Oh no! Instead of panicking and pulling your hand away the same way you blocked it, roll your arm out of the attacker's grip, lift it above your head as though you were about to bonk them in the face with a boken, and hit.
• Punch.
• 90 ° turn, reach, 3x ageuke, first kiai.
• 270 ° turn to gedan berai.
• Forward middle punch (Chuudan zuki).
• 180 ° turn into gedan berai.
• Chuudan zuki.
• 90° turn into gedan berai. Imagine that this is Fight Club.
• 3x chuudan zuki and second kiai.
• 90° turn into back stance block.
• 45° turn into the same.
• 45° turn into the same, but in the opposite direction.
• 45° turn into the same.

The pattern should look like this:

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Tora Shotokan Karate Seminar with Sensei Ana Xepapas

This weekend, I have finally got the opportunity to be taught by Ana-Sensei from the Tora Shotokan Dojo in Tasmania. Senseis Catharine, Ben and Andrew are methodical and thoughtful in the way they teach. But it's also great to have different Sensei come and teach us new exercises 'cause they all have a different perspective on teaching. ; Sensei Arie focused on strengthening and flexibility exercises; and Sensei Ana showed us  exercises that are good at showing the weaknesses of all the belts.

As 9th Kyuu, the kata that I will be grading in when I return to Australia will be Heian Shoudan. I'm not sure what shoudan means, but 平安 means "peace," which always confuses people. The first character can mean "flat" or in the broader sense, "unchanging," and is a simple character with no further meaning  one can derive from radicals. The second character means "safety" in both Japanese and Chinese. The components of the second character are a woman under a roof. Despite all this knowledge about language, I have no idea why the first kata of karate is a peaceful one.

I will try to explain the kata and what the movements mean to me. I invite any other practitioners of Shotokan to comment, because there is never enough time to discuss this sort of thing in the dojo.

• Zenkutsu Dachi (前屈立ち）: Front stance (first character means front, third character means stand). The purpose of the stances is to have the correct balance of stability and movement. The lower and wider your stance is, the more stability you have, but if it is too wide or low, it may become too slow and irresponsive.
• Gedan berai (下段べらい）: The low block. You are turning to the side and covering the region from your legs to your stomach from kicks or punches. You are moving your hips forward because you want to prepare to punch or kick and use the force from your hips, legs and feet to do so. You are timing your breathing with the moment so that the breath is as fast as the movement.
• Churn chokuzuki（中段直ずき）: The power of the forward mid-height punch depends a lot on the previous block.
• The high block after the first 180° turn: grabbing free of an attacker who is clutching your arm and hitting them on the head with the edge of your forearm.
• Ageuke (上げ受け/lit: rising block): Using the edge of your arm to drive away strikes directed towards your upper body.
• Koukutsu dachi (後屈立ち: lit back bending stance): a very narrow stance that can be stabilised by lowering, but enables one to approach their attackers from various angles (the two 45° stances in the kata being a good example).
• Nukite block: the block that accompanies Koukutsu dachi. 

In the Seminar, we did blind katas. This was interesting, because even some of the black belts froze or hesitated mid kata due to being unsure. And despite this, as Ana commented, most of us stuffed up our kata at some point and then recovered, before finishing. This reminded me of when I was a white belt and I was told to close my eyes whilst doing movements so that I could focus on what my body was doing. This had involved being guided into the perfect starting and ending positions for movements. This hadn't entirely worked because my problems arose from the way I moved and lack of arm/leg coordination rather than the static positions. But doing the movements blind worked from the point of view that I attained the concept of trying to do a certain thing with my body, but in such a way that I do not lose too much stability in my stance.

We also did katas in which we dragged two people either side of us. One thing I noticed was, how it was more effective to drag the people after stepping into stance and how similar this was to how the Senseis are always telling me to punch or block after I step.

Another thing we did was punch into the open hands of our partners, who had to push against the punch once it became stationary. I felt that if I pushed my blocking hip forward, my stance became stronger.

Doing the katas in the opposite direction was confusing for nearly everyone.

My biggest challenge in Karate at the moment is hand and feet coordination. I understand that in many movements, unless there is an exception specified, that the hand that is blocking or punching should be on the same side as the active leg (forward stance = active forward leg), and that the best way to block someone is to begin by matching the position of their forward leg. But I'm terrible at listening to instructions, often mixing up my right hand with my "other right hand."