Make every move of your kata a seperate kata

Although I learned of this concept in Iaido class, I do feel that it certainly does apply to our Karate training. I was going through a kata and one of my fellow students, who was helping me with some kata details, made a comment about making each move of the kata a separate kata. The reason he said this was because I was rushing from one move to the next without waiting to see if the next move was even needed. One strike, one kill If each technique that we do is supposed to stop an attacker, one effective technique would end the kata. With that in mind, instead of doing each technique anticipating the next technique in the kata, each move should be done with the purpose of ending the attack against you and then you still should have enough pause or “zanshin” to see what you need to …

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Sen no sen, Sen Sen no sen, Go no sen and Deai

I recently received an email asking what the difference is between sen no sen and deai. Instead of just replying to the email, I felt that it would be better if I could share it with everyone. I had my own thoughts about what those concepts meant but I wanted to be sure that my answers were correct. Because of this, I asked my Sensei, Sensei Marty Cieplik, for a definitive answer. Thanks Sensei! I am glad that I wasn’t far off the mark with these concepts but the difference between sen no sen and sen sen no sen was something that I did not know enough about although I use the concept all the time when sparring. Go no sen: Go no sen is block and attacking the opponent after their attack has finished. For example, my opponent throws a reverse punch at my face, I stop that attack …

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A kata a day makes Karate good

I have something that I want to share with you that I know will help your Karate over the next 12 months or less. In late 2011, I set a goal to do at least one Karate kata (and one Iaido kata, the other art I am studying) every day going forward. My thoughts are that every day I do not train is a day that I cannot get back. That training time is lost and I do not like to lose things. I also felt that doing the kata would improve at the very least my mind but also just moving would improve my body. From that time until the first day of 2013 I missed doing kata on six days. I did that one kata almost any time during the day. I could have been 6 pm, midnight just before going to sleep, 4 am or any other …

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