Ways to Practice your Kata

I just rode my bike 19.55km and I’m feeling pumped!  I found a nice spot by the lake to read my book and the sun was just blazing (26*).  Thought I’d do a quick post on some of the notes we took down last night in class with a few additions at the end.

Some ways to practice your kata that were mentioned last night:

1. Just do the kata
2. Mirror image of the kata (I’ve never thought of this one, I’m excited to try it where you perform the kata as it would appear in the mirror)
3. Do it emphasizing your feet
4. Emphasizing your hands
5. Just do the stances and make sure they are correct and strong
6. Do movements that run together and keep repeating just those ‘runs’
7. Practice combos and repeat them
8. Do the kata in reverse (another one I have never thought to try)
9. Do it in a straight line
10. 1-2,2-3,3-4- Do the fist and second technique together, the second and third technique together etc. to sharpen the transitions between all movements and the techniques themselves
11. Do the most difficult parts in the kata
12. Point/point- Stop during the kata and analyze your position to make sure everything is on point
13. Visualize the bunkai of the kata as you do it

Some additional ways to practice your kata that Sensei has shown us over the years that I like to use when I practice on my own:

1. Doing the kata with weapons – I don’t do this one at home but I altered is slightly and do it with weights.  Doing this I think of two things, one, getting my punches and blocks faster by doing it fast with weights and then taking them away and see how the speed has increased.  Two, thinking of how your ki extends to the end of the weights just as you with would with the weapons.
2. Do the kata emphasizing how your arms rub against each other and your body.
3. Practice on different terrain- practice on grass, sand, ice, a lake, hardwood floor, my driveway, washroom at work.
4. Face a direction that throws me – I am directionally challenged (yes, I made up a word).  I like to start my katas facing a certain direction that feels ‘flat’ to me (be it a wall or the ocean but it has to be one long visual with no breaks).  To start it facing a corner throws me off and those challenges are the best ones.
5. Kiai on every technique – one of my favorites when I need to put more kime into my kata.  There is always that a move that I find I neglect and when I kiai on each one it forces me not to have preferences.
6. Do push-ups and lift weights to exhaust your arms beforehand.
7. Lastly, as a test when I think I know a kata I try to do it from a random part within the kata.  Do I know which foot is in front?  Am I positive?

A few more ways suggested through comments:

1. Blindfolded/eyes closed (an addition to the list by Sensei Peter)
2. Do seiza first until you can’t feel your legs- Another valuable lesson from Sensei Peter and I am always grateful to learn from others’ experiences.
3. Do the kata slowly emphasizing each technique (comment from Caroline Scutt)

I am sure there are many more ways to practice your kata.  Feel free to share some ways that you practice.

Dojo Kun: Continue to Train with Patience and Steadiness

In all things karate there is always a deeper meaning to what is done and written.  The same can be said for dojo kuns (dojo oaths).  Just as every kata you learn, dojo kuns mean one thing to you when you first learn them, and they slowly take on a new meaning as your progress in your studies.  Your interpretations change and your understanding is greater; when you get to the heart of it you as a person are different so what you take from teachings must also be different.

From green to blue belt I was able to help with the children’s classes two times a week.  At this time I interpreted our dojo kun line ‘continue to train with patience and steadiness’ to mean ‘don’t quit, don’t lose hope’.  I saw kids get frustrated if they were not learning to kick fast enough when they needed to focus on their punches first, if they were not moving up in rank or who wanted to learn the next kata before they were ready.  In each of these cases I saw someone who didn’t understand the ‘process and not product’ way of karate (see post Process not Product).  After those experiences this line seemed necessary and I thought that was all it meant.  Now I see it means so much more.  Those children who stuck through were highly proficient in all their katas and techniques because of it rather than having had learned them sooner and be average in all of them.

Mind Over Body ?

It is hard to watch videos of men pulling planes with their teeth and not believe that there is a certain amount of power that humans possess when they set their mind on a goal.

Recently, I was told that I may have to do 50 push-ups for a grading.  My eyes bulged out of my head!  I’ve been at it ever since and every time I get down there I fail to reach 40 let alone 50.  I told my best friend about my anxiousness and he said me that it is in my mind…  In my mind.  When he said this it brought up a battle between the mind and the body and being that this is a blog about my daily three battles I had to write it down.

Lately, I have moved away from focusing on ‘spirit’ in favor of focusing on the ‘body’ so  push-ups are completely applicable.  50 push-ups!  I give myself a good pep talk each time before I start.  I put on some good music and when I get down there I think to myself: “this is the time that you’re going to break through”.  I actually have to laugh at the whole thing after when I fail, once again.  As much as I believe that we as humans can do anything if we really, truly believe we can, every time I push myself back up for the 20^th time I feel like my arms are going to collapse on the way down for the next one.  So now I have to ask myself, is it that my body is too weak to do the  push-ups or that my mind is too weak to get me there?  How do you know when it’s your mind and when it’s your body?

I am definitely not qualified enough to know the answer to this but I’m putting it out there in case someone has an answer, and so later I can look back and answer myself.

Perfecting Sanchin: Below the Waist

Sanchin update:  my focus has been on everything below the waist and my tanden.  Doing the kata over and over I am searching for my perfect balance while simultaneously contracting my leg muscles, gripping my feet, tightening the glutes and keeping the thighs close together.

I remember when I used to watch karate classes and one of my first classes a brown belt performed Sanchin.  It looked simple in its movements and I didn’t understand why this was the only kata I’ve seen performed where the practitioner was breathing so heavily- I thought it was just his style and maybe he performed all his katas this way.  Wow, was I wrong.  This kata is anything but simple.  Each focus will take more than a week, I see that now.  I have read other blogs by Goju karateka and they list a few tips that they found useful when doing Sanchin.  I will try those and post my own tips as they come.

Next, I intend to focus on making sure my arms are constantly rubbing against my sides.

Perfecting Sanchin: The Training Begins

After reading Karatedo: My Way of Life i saw that the way karateka used to train they could perform the same kata over and again, everyday for months before proceeding on to a new kata. I have decided that I’m going to try this (without risking my other katas). Practicing Goju Ryu I believe that the kata i should aim to perfect first should be Sanchin (how appropriate for a blog such as this).  My plan is to perform the kata daily and focus on one aspect of the kata every week. This seems like a grueling challenge but I am keen on experiencing what masters before me went through to become so skilled, dedicated and knowledgeable.

Zen Breathing: My New Morning Routine

It’s 7:30 in the morning and I’m en route to work via the bus. This bus takes approximately an hour, just long enough to accomplish a small task for the day.I ran to catch this bus and was doing the usual deep breaths to get my breating back to a normal pace and i notice that even with these long breaths my breathing is still very shallow. Once i let air out i quickly want to inhale; a completely unwarranted fear that i don’t have enough air.I believe this would be a good place to start my Sanchin training. Breathing is important in all kata but is given enough a great weight within Sanchin.During the hour on the bus, as the sun rose, I practiced my Zen breathing on the bus. In my head I heard two small rocks clap together to instruct me to breathe in, and breathe out.Joe was right when he said that this alone could be a warm up. By the time it was my turn to get off the bus I felt energized and better balanced.This is now my new routine until i can easily breathe in, imagining a light smoke entering and coursing through my arms and legs without feeling the need to gulp in more air. I will write more on this as i progress.

Sanchin and other cures

In the days after I’m just trying to keep moving forward.  Trying to take care of yourself and make sure you’re eating and sleeping at somewhat normal times.  Manan has told me to do Sanchin and while that would be highly appropriate for this blog I can’t seem to bring myself to do it.  I can’t see how it can help me right now.  But as I move further away from that day on my life graph the more I feel as though I can do smaller acts without feeling as though they should be able to heal you all on their own.  To have done it before would have meant that I believed that Sanchin alone could cure my heartache, now it is one of the many small acts I will continue to do to stay sane and not lose track of what I was doing.

This experience has taught me many things I won’t readily forget.  I have a strong family, I have friends who would truly give me their clothes and feed me without question, and your neighbours need not be taken for granted- you have built a slow relationship with people that you may not have realized was strong enough that they would come outside with a platter of food and let you sit in their living room to escape the rain.  When life returns to ‘normal’ I will know now that people care enough to make sure my house is built back the way it should be.  Everyone has lent what they were able to give and it all means so much.

Knowing this I will do Sanchin and I will be sure to let you know what relief, if any, it  brings me in the next few weeks… months.

Fire burning, fire burning, draw nearer

Picture this scene.  Your house is on fire.  It’s pouring rain on a Sunday morning and your sitting on a sidewalk, watching the smoke coming out of your house, in your pyjamas and no shoes.

Your family is panicking, you have a pool full of people gawking at your house, taking pictures of your life in a brick box with complete disregard for you and your situation.  Your street is full of ambulances, fire trucks and police.  Everyone wants to know if it’s your house.  End scene.

As I am sitting here I know I have to be the calm one.  I know I have to get it together but I feel upset and angry and all I care about is that no one is looking for my cat.  I need to breathe and I think to myself “is there anything I have learnt in karate that can help me right now?”.  I turn around and try to tune out the noise.  Mukso time.  Concentrating on my breathing I have been instructed to think of a time where I was happy; I can’t think of any at the moment.  So I just concentrate… on nothing.  Surprisingly it is even easier now then it normally is at the end of class.  At the end of class you’re excited for what is to come later that night or that weekend, you have things to do and time is moving at it’s normal pace.  At this moment everything is slow and anyone I need is right here with me.  I don’t care about the weekend, I don’t care about my shoes or work or anything else.  Time is moving fast and extremely slow all at the same time and for some reason this makes it easier to meditate and breathe deeply as if nothing else matters.

When I finally turn back around I feel a numbness that I welcome.  I can handle this now.  I go back to my family and know that we’re going to move forward together and that’s all we can hope for at this moment.

 

Empty Your Cup

Coaching teenaged girls may have been the greatest challenge I have given myself lately.  To have leadership skills are one thing, to know a sport well is another, to take those two and teach it to someone who believes they know it better than anyone else- that is a whole different ballgame (sorry about the pun).

After this chapter I knew what I had to go back and teach them at my practice and as I spoke  I could see that many of them were no receptive to my techniques.  While not everyone was entirely convinced I could see that that was their own battle to take on and I was tested myself not too long after.

When I was younger one of my coaches had the bright idea that I should be a pitcher.  After going to pitching clinics weekly and playing on both houseleague teams and all-star I was pretty good in my prime.  It’s been a while since I’ve pitched and my current team was struggling for a new pitcher as everyone was starting to get injured after an on again, off again season with a lot of rain.  I decided to try it out and I was warming up before one of the games and my coach came up to me and said “why do you warm up that way?  If you’re not going to pitch anything but a windmill why warm up any other way then a windmill?”.  That was a completely fair question and with no disrespect intended I went to answer what I had been taught and why I was doing it.  Before I could even get two words out she stopped me and said “I can’t teach you if you’re going to argue”.  From then I realized I had to empty my cup even more than I normally do because it was threatening to her.  While I would never argue with a coach I could see my kids mirrored in my actions- I could see sometimes they meant no harm by questioning my every move but sometimes I had to tell them to just trust me and try it.  In this instance I had to just trust her.

This is a very good lesson- if you’re full of your own ideas how can you ever achieve greater concepts?

Bunkai Really Works!

During one of the last classes for the winter term we were practicing self defence.  Sempai Leigh had me against a wall and for some reason I felt like my body knew this scenario and my defense just flowed from me all on its own.  After, when I had a second to asses my attack and re-evaluate, I realized it was part of a bunkai that we had been practicing and exclaimed “bunkai really works!”.  All jokes aside, it was an extraordinary feeling, and I’m sure the first of many times, to have your body do what it needs to do to protect yourself without fear or thinking getting in the way.