Course Report - November 2002

Problems, problems, problems!!!!!

Due to the firemen's strike we had to temporarily forget our usual arrangement of having the kids and adults on different weekends and go back to having them the same weekend. This arrangement is far from satisfactory, but we didn't have any choice.

- Saturday 16th -

Session 1
Andy Vallance started the proceedings with a warmup and the mixed kids\adults group then performed basic techniques (Kihon) while being corrected by Hugh and Sanny. Andy then lead the group through all the Heian katas.

One of the main differences between Shotokai karate and other types is our emphisis on getting the distance between you and your attacker correct for you. To this end we spend a lot of time walking back and forth with our arms outstretched and fingertips touching. This allows us to practice "feeling" when an opponent's body condition changes when they stop or change direction. There are many variations of this practice such as not having the arms up, pausing and starting etc. All were put to use today.

Next step (no pun intended - honest!) was to convert this stepping into movement while in stance and see if the natural movement stopped. This was obviously fine 'cause it was on to movement in stance with an attack thrown in now and again.

The purpose of this practice is to try and keep relaxed with the body moving inside (even when you seen to be stationary) and not let external influences such as an attacker upset your composure.

Again, the group performed all the Heian katas to pull the timing back together again.

Lastly, it was "piggy in the middle". A large circle surrounding one person in the middle. Whoever the person in the middle looks at attacks them. Sound like your worst nightmare - it is ! This practice is to teach us to be able to switch from one attackers timing to another's very quickly while staying relaxed. It's a hard thing to get right, but feels great when you do.

That was enough for the kids who left at this point.

Session 2

After a short break the adult only practice started with Irimi. There are many different ways to practice any technique in any sport/art, but we've found the best way to practice this is for two people to run towards each other from opposite ends of the hall and, using a twist of the hips at the last moment, slip past each other. From here, it moved on to one person punching at the correct distance, then onto a kick.

A natural progression from this is to circular sanbon which uses the twisting technique to evade a persistant attacker.

At this point Hugh and Sanny split the group into Kyu and Dan groups. The Kyu grades continuing practicing circular sanbon, while the dan grades went on to practice Jyu Kimite slowly. This is a hard practice mentally. Although the movements are caried out very slowly, the difficulty is not to suddenly speed up when you see and attack coming or when you see an opening to attack.

The Kyu grades then practiced Heian Godan while Sanny took the Dan grades through the Jutte kata which is one that most of us had not practiced before.

- Sunday 17th -

Session 1
Jim Brady took the adult group for a practice while the juniors had a warmup followed by instruction in how to sit correctly in Zazen.

Next up was the almost legendary Kihon for the whole juniors group. You ever tried to get 50 kids to get into two parallell lines ? I think it was around about now I saw Hugh walking along the back wall holding his head ! basic blocks, attacks, kicks and stances were all checked by the adult dan grades and corrections made.

Next the group was split into 3, white belts, red/yellow, orange and above. The white belt group practiced Ippon Kimite well out of distance to avoid any accidents while the other two groups performed Heian Shodan and Nidan.

Session 2
After a short warmup courtesy of Andy Vallance the kids were split into the same groups and continued practicing what they'd been doing before the break. During this time Hugh and Sanny were going from group to group watching them, bring kids up and assessing them for their gradings.

This time seemed to fly in, and the juniors section of the course finished with the whole group performing kata again. After a short break to get changed the grading results were read out by Eddie Tibbles and trophies presented.

During all this, Jim had the adult group continuing on from the previous day's practice with more movement and stepping practice and finally Heian Shodan kata.

Session 3
Adults only now! After a warmup from John Semple, the group performed Heian Shodan to get the timing pulled together.

From there we moved on to Sanbon Kimite and then again to Circular Sanbon to take advantage of all the Irimi and movement practices.

At this point Hugh and Sanny split the group again into Kyu and Dan grades. The Kyu grades continuing to practice circular sanbon and eventually using kicks instead of punches while the dan grades practices SLOW Jyu kimite.

Finally both groups practiced kata as a warm-down and grading results were read out. Congratulations to everyone who moved up.

Everybody I spoke to seemed to have enjoyed the course, even Tam Williams who had a blister the size of Scotland on his foot !