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 …

Read more

Black belt equals no ego?

I have spent the last six months adjusting to being a black belt. I have learned some interesting things and one that stuck out, just recently, is the lack of ego. Too much ego, not enough brain…. When I was coming up through the ranks, I was very concerned about what others thought about my Karate. When training in the dojo, I was always looking for approval from my Sensei’s, my examiners, other students and everyone who watched me. When I would spar, I would always use my best techniques against anyone that I was sparring with just to show that I had skills or at least the skills that I thought I had. Instead of working on the techniques that I needed to improve on, I would always us the same attacks. I never wanted to use techniques that I knew I wasn’t very good at because my ego …

Read more

Black Belt; the Karate journey has just begun.

First, let me back up to the beginning of June….. It was a week before my Karate examination for Shodan and I made sure that I did everything I could to take my black belt on the day of my exam. I trained harder than ever before. I did over 300 katas in the two months before the exam, studied my Japanese terms, did stance training and pushed myself harder in my classes than I ever did in the past. I walked into that exam more than ready to take my rank and earn my black belt. Two days after my exam, I learned that I had passed. After almost six years of training, taking up to five classes a week at one point, reading every Karate book that I could get my hands on, assisting with Karate classes for over three years and living, breathing and sleeping Karate, I …

Read more