Just yesterday, I had a really great Karate class. This was a class where I learned to do something the correct way after trying to do it for over five years. The solution to this was so incredibly simple but it took me a very long time and some really simple words from my Sensei to bring it out.

For the longest time, I have struggled to move from my hips. I have been told many times to tuck my tailbone or push the knot of my belt forward but for some reason, I was not able to do it. No matter how hard I tried or how large of an arch I had in my lower back, moving from my hips seemed to always evade me.

Here is where the light bulb turned on above my head. My Sensei had all of us get into a short front stance. From here he said tuck your tailbone under and do not let your hips face the floor, instead let your hips face forward. If the front stance is too long or longer than your flexibility will allow, you can see the hips pointing toward the floor not forward. Also, if the stance is too long for you, the tailbone just won’t tuck under and moving from your hips is impossible.

Once I got into a short stance, I could easily tuck my tailbone and move forward using my hips not my shoulders and chest. When I added a punch for my forward movement, it felt like my hands moved almost automatically. This also changed my timing for the better. When my front foot reached the end of it’s range of motion, my hand flew out and my entire stopped without any extra movements. There was no wiggle or adjustments, it just stopped and the movement was complete.

Here is the point that my Sensei made. Learn the technique first, then make it better. I had been fighting my body for over five years trying to do a low stance while tucking my tailbone and I never felt the correct technique. By raising my stance, I now have felt how the technique feels and now I can work on lowering my stance, increasing my flexibility and range of motion while keeping the correct technique.

It just goes to show, no matter how much you think you know or how long you have been doing it, there is always something that can be learned or improved.

On October 25th my club, the ISKC, is sponsoring an event to help sick and needy families called Kick for Cures. The way it works, is we go to one of four locations and do 1000 kicks and punches. People sponsor us, either with a per kick donation or a flat amount.

I know that money is tight for everyone and my being out of work for over two years hasn’t left a lot of extra money for me to donate but I am giving as much as I can afford. If you sponsor a single $1.00 that would help these people in need and I am sure it would be greatly appreciated by them.

If you would like to sponsor me you can do so online at: Kick for Cures at events.org.

Below is more information about where your donation goes.

Where does the money go?

The money is allocated to 3 funds and 10 Charities that provide support and cure research:

+ Make A Wish
+ Cystic Fibrosis
+ Augie’s Quest
+ American Brain Tumor Association
+ Michael J. Fox Foundation
+ ISKC’s stricken families in need
+ Jennifer Malloy Scholarship Fund
+ Relay for Life
+ Autism Speaks
+ Bear Necessities

If you are in my club, I would like to personally ask you to come out and do this event and show your support not only for our club itself but for our instructors that share and teach us so many good things.

Information about the locations and times of the Kick for Cures event can be found at: Kick for Cures Info.

If you can show up to the event or donate, I would like to thank you in advance for doing so. Again, any little bit helps and even a $1.00 would be appreciated.

Thanks again.

Doug

Have you taken a good look at your Karate lately? Do you evaluate where you are at, where you are going and adjust your training based on your goals? Are you training for the sake of training even though it might not be helping reach your goals?

This is one area that I haven’t given as much attention as I should have over the last few years. After my last rank examination, I spent a lot of time evaluating my training and what I need in order to improve my weaknesses.

I have been taking advanced classes for at least two years now if not longer but I feel that somewhere along the line, I missed or never got a solid grasp of kihon fundamentals. How could I have gone through five plus years of hard Karate training without doing such simple things as tightening my core when I punch or block and not focusing on pushing from my back heel when punching. I found out, just recently, that I was doing a front snap kick like a front thrust kick for well over a year even though one of my Sensei’s corrected me almost weekly. I was kicking from the floor instead of bringing my knee up and extending my leg. The worse part is that I have mentioned that a front snap kick is just an extended knee strike in my training blog but it never sunk in until just the other day.

It’s the simple, beginner movements that are starting to haunt because I think I have gotten too complacent. The battle is fixing those simple mistakes by unlearning the many thousands of wrong movements that I have been doing. One thing that makes me feel that I am not alone is something that one of my Sensei’s said today. He said that even though he has been doing Karate for many years now, he spent over two hours working on moving forward in a front stance because one of our senior Sensei’s corrected him the week before. Moving forward in front stance is something that many Karate students learned in our first Karate class yet it goes to show that there is always something that we can fix or improve no matter how long or hard we train.