Get Vaccinated!
Most of the adults who teach or participate in the board meetings for our small karate club have gotten vaccinated. My husband and I went for our second doses on Tuesday. By Wednesday, we were both definitely feeling that second vaccine! Today, I’m almost two days past my vaccination and feeling much better.
Our older teenagers have been able to receive vaccinations as well. Several of our members are under sixteen, and have not been able to receive vaccines. We’re still continuing our classes over Zoom and meeting on occasion in a park, where we observe social distancing. We have not been able to resume kumite or other close contact activities. If you’re lucky enough to have multiple family members who practice karate, then those close-contact activities are an option.
Training in the Park on Saturday!
Last Saturday, Senpai B, our sixteen year old Nidan, and Sensei T led class. For a change, my oldest, F, was able to take a break from school work long enough to join the class. S, who normally looks forward to attending, had stayed up late to turn in a project, and slept in.
Sensei T led the group in a warm-up that involved running in a circle, doing side-shuffles. He also had us reverse these by turning to the inside or the outside of the circle. During kihon, Sensei T also introduced moving drills. For example, during kicks, we’d step forward for mawashi geris or yoko geris, then reverse and go back.
It was so nice to be able to have space for these exercises! Many of us have been practicing over Zoom in the living room or in a bedroom, and dealing with a lack of space. Kicking forward and backwards in a park felt like freedom!
We reviewed several kata, including Kanku. Senpai B covered both some basic and advanced kata, and also took requests. We even went briefly over Kanku. At one point, when Sensei R was teaching it, I had gotten pretty good. However, my more recent lack of practice has caught up with me!
After reviewing kata, we practiced Bo Sono Ichi and Bo Sono Ni. That was a lot of fun. Also, giving every student a bo staff makes it very easy to measure out space for social distancing!
What’s the best way to solidify a kata in your head? Teach it!
I did, however, teach Saifa over Zoom. The last time Sensei T had had us do a kata walk, I realized I was weak in Saifa and needed much more practice. I committed to teaching it over Zoom, which required me to practice it several times beforehand, and pay attention to the smaller details.
To teach this kata, I setup two “cameras,” a laptop facing me from the front, and an iPhone set further back from the side. I had the monitor do a “split screen” between these two over Zoom so students could see what I was doing from both the front and the side. I also “screen-shared” so we could watch a couple videos of the kata.
YouTube, of course, is my friend where this is concerned, and I found two great videos:
I also love this Sensei’s rendition of the kata, posted by Kyokushin Cape Town:
One thing I’ve started to do when teaching over Zoom: I have the class watch the two videos then talk about the differences. For me, one of the biggest differences between the two Senseis is their head motions. The Sensei in the first video looks forward until he snaps his elbow into hiji ate. At that point, he snaps his head forward. The Cape Town Sensei appears to be keeping his eyes on his “opponent” the entire time, so he looks forward even when his body is turned to the side. Both present different challenges, and it’s interesting to try each one and see how it feels!
It will be a while, however, before I’d attempt to teach Kanku!
Quick Video Notes
Oh, quick note on Kyokushin katas on-line: recently I found a good-quality posting that contains several of the kata videos we often look for, as well as a page of credits, listing the instructors, the katas and even who created the music. I’d like to post it for reference:
The credit page created by ovodilen, who posted the complete video series, is worth reading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il9ObsFHjVM&t=586s
