Tag: karate stances

Kata challenge and Stance holding insanity

How long can you hold a stance?

Two of our junior shodans taught our last two Zoom karate classes, and each of them were quite challenging. Senpai K started off class normal enough, with stretches, kihon conducted at a good pace, followed by a water break. He had us review pinan sono yon a few times.

Next, a devious idea came to Senpai’s mind: he asked the monitor to set a timer, and had us run part of the kata, then freeze and hold that stance as long as we could. The first pose was a zenkutsu dachi, and the entire class held this for five minutes. Senpai K then had us stop.

Kiba Pain

Senpai K had us go into kiba dachi, or “horse stance.” Kiba is a thigh-burner and more of a challenge than zenkutsu dachi. Senpai K let us sail right past that five minute mark. I thought he said we would stop at six minutes, but I misunderstood. When the monitor called six minutes, my legs were already shaking. I came up to shake them out, but I was the only one!

Everyone else, including Senpai K, continued to hold the kiba stance. After a minute or so break, I went back into the stance and held it with the group. In total, everyone, except for me, held that kiba stance for ten minutes! Some of the students, like our newest green belt and one of our brown belts, kept their arms out in fists the whole time, while others, Sensei T among them, practiced punching or other strikes to keep it interesting.

Kata Challenge Saturday

Senpai N, my son’s good friend, taught class yesterday morning. First, she started with a vigorous kihon of ten exercises, but went “straight through.” This means that she calls the stance and the first exercise, but we move straight through all the exercises done in that particular stance. For example, when she calls “migi sanchin dachi,” this is the stance we get into during kihon for punches. So once we get into that stance, we understand that we should run all the punches: seiken chudan tsuki, jodan tsuki, ago uki, uraken shomen uchi, etc. She led kihon at a fast clip, except when a rat pulled her attention away a time or two. She was instructing with a computer setup in her own back yard and had a wild visitor or two.

Kihon Improvements

Sensei T reminded us to watch our hikate hands, the side you keep “in guard” while the other hand does the technique. He also spoke some about how you may keep your guard differently depending on your situation. During a street fight, for example, you will want to keep your face guarded, so you may keep your hands higher than you would in normal kihon for some techniques.

Speaking of kihon, I often do a quick google search to check my spelling of the Japanese terms, etc. While doing so, I found a couple very cool videos. So first, a video about the first and most basic block we learn: chudan uke. This video is created by One Minute Bunkai:

I love the fact that he begins with the most straight-forward demonstration of the technique and its use, then develops it to show a wide variety of uses. Note that it can be an attack as well as a block.

Next, I found this: it’s a video showing demonstrations of many basic Kyokushin moves for kihon. Several of the folks in the videos are well-known karateka in Kyokushin:

Shared on Youtube by ovodilen

Kata Recall

Senpai N wanted us to complete kihon quickly so we could have plenty of time for the next item on her agenda: kata. Before the water break, she asked class members to come up with a kata to do. We should choose the kata we feel we know best. My son and I brainstormed, and I felt I should be able to do any of the kata I’ve learned, with the exception of Kanku. I really need to practice that. We landed on Tensho, and decided to do it together. We did fine, but I realized I needed to work on some of the finer parts. And speaking of Tensho, check this out. This video is shared by Kasımpaşa Budokai-Do:

Mas Oyama performing Tensho as part of a performance in Brazil

Yes! That is Sosai Masutatsu Oyama himself, our style’s founder. Watching him, I know my son and I have more practicing to do. I also love the smoke on the stage–Oyama was such a showman on top of being an incredible karate teacher.

Saturday July 18th, 2020

This morning, Sensei led the 10am karate class over Zoom. He asked F to lead kihon. Actually yesterday, towards the end of our training with him, he told F that he’d like to see her tire everyone out through kihon. So she did. She pushed the class quite hard, with exercises in between movement sets, careful to give us little downtime.

Sensei remarked to another student, without specifying who, “So you want to be treated as an adult? You want to go through the adult shodan test? Your karate, right now, looks more like that of a twelve year old, rather than a fourteen year old. Show me what you can do!”

F thought he was talking to her. She was not aware that, earlier over the Zoom, one of the other students, a junior shodan who is about thirteen, asked to be able to try out for the adult shodan test. This, at least, was what Sensei had understood her to ask. A little later, we found out she’d meant something different. Our youngest adult shodan, at our dojo, was fourteen. So the request of a thirteen year old to take test would not have been a crazy request. Under the IFK, the rule is that a person must be sixteen years of age. When Sensei’s dojo joined the IFK, he and she had to make the case that she had the experience and maturity to be in her rank, and they did.

In any case, F thought Sensei had chastised her. Just yesterday, F told Sensei she wanted to be treated like an adult in relation to the martial arts club. She didn’t like the fact that, when the club came up in conversation, he addressed me and not her. F felt he did not include her. She wants him to include her, and phrased it this way: he treats her like a kid.

So he answered that she was seeking attention, and he wasn’t going to do it. He countered, she needs to find her own validation within, and not seek it from others. He gave her a good lecture on that topic.

Funny, as I listened to him, I thought of how I could apply that advice to my own work-life. Granted, it’s not quite the same when you are an adult in a professional context. Validation and attention are also tied up with money, promotions, and your ability to provide for your family. The stakes are much higher. Also, our society adds whole other layers of complexity in unconscious bias and institutional sexism and racism, if a professional is a woman, a mother or a person of color.

However, as an individual faced with these undercurrents, what do you do? You, also, must find validation within. You know what your education level is, what your own prior work experience is, and how hard you have worked to get to where you are. The obstacles you’ve overcome, the challenges you’ve faced down, the self-doubt and doubt of others that you’d had to stave off: you know these things about yourself. Therefore, like F, you must seek your own validation within. In the face of the storm, the pandemic, the discounting and doubting from others, strive to be unshaken. Know at your core what you are capable of, and what you are. Know you define it.

Given the conversation from yesterday, F decided to prove what she could do. So she kicked an already rigorous kihon up another notch. F exhausted us, and herself, in short order, so much so that Sensei stopped kihon to instruct us in breathing. He then gave F pointers as an instructor: the instructor, in order to be a good leader, cannot overextend her- or himself. “You shouldn’t give what you don’t have,” he put it succinctly. In this breathing exercise, you breathe in and hold your breath. While holding, you tense up your body, push your hands before you slowly, then release your breath.

We think the name for this kind of breathing is “ibari,” but we are not sure of the spelling. I tried to find reference to it in Oyama’s “This is Karate,” and it sounds similar to Nogare breathing, but isn’t quite the same. You use it to gather your strength and focus, if you will. F will check in with Sensei on the spelling. I’ll post a correction when we know for sure.

F modulated her instruction according to Sensei’s advice, and provided time for the grown-ups with our rusty joints to actually perform some of the kicks better, etc. She still pushed us hard. At the end of class, she had us hold stances: both Migi (right) and Hidari (left) Zenkutsu Dachi, and Kiba (horse-riding stance). We held the Zenkutsu Dachis for one minute and the Kiba Dachi for two minutes. This is while our legs are burning from her previously brutal kihon! Also, S, F and I had had that workout with Sensei the day before! So those four minutes felt very long.

At the conclusion of class, Sensei praised F. He praised her for her leadership as well as her physical fitness before the whole class.

After class, Sensei held a brief meeting of the Udancha to go over who would be testing for what. It was my first time to participate in the Udancha. I felt honored. Sensei also gave high praise to my S, and SL, the other highly accomplished junior shodan close to S’s age. That was so nice to hear.

When it was all over, S and I told F, “Hey, Sensei’s remark that someone was working out like a twelve year old? That wasn’t aimed at you.” Hearing this surprised and embarrassed her. Nevertheless, she was our tiger trainer as a result.

Finally, and unfortunately, the kids’ reward for that excellent workout was to help mop the floors. Followed by evening ice cream.

Osu!