The first rule of Fight Club...

It's just 5 days until the kumite competition and in the last couple of weeks I've tried to ramp up the training to two or three sessions a week. With a full time job and family, finding 6 hours of free time every week just isn't possible, but for a short period running up to a competition it's just about manageable.

Having focussed very heavily on sparring practice in almost every session, and having an average of 1:3 win to lose, I'm resigned to the possibility that luck rather than technique will get me through my bouts. I know I'm not really ready to compete, but at the same time if I don't do it now it'll be come something I avoid, so I am officially "in the squad" for the foreseeable. If there are any opponents reading this, here's a few pointers: I'm pretty slow and static, won't be throwing any three point kicks, and rely quite heavily on an ashi barai, gyak combo!

My total immersion in Wado and Leicester Karate Association is nearly complete; I'm really please that Sensei Chand has raised the profile of the association by affiliating with Aiwakai and the EKF which gives us greater access to training and competition opportunities, as well as attracting new blood. I've somehow managed to become the media officer for LK too and am now managing the social networking output (twitter and facebook) to try to keep everyone informed of upcoming events.

Last Sunday was our first Black Belt club and a chance to stop fighting for a couple of hours and practice kata - Wanshu and Niseishi - both of which I really like - unfortunately I still need to pin down the pinans and crack Kushanku before learning Chinto and improving my Seishan if I want to grade for 2nd Dan at the end of the year. 

All in all a very busy few weeks for me as lesson by lesson I unlearn Shotokan and become a Wadokai karateka. Watashi no kouun wo inotte kudasai.

That New Year Spirit

Happy New Year!

Whilst I wouldn't say I ended 2010 on a downer, there was a definite low-ebb in my pre-christmas post about my achievements versus my karate self-image. If you leave the Martial Arts in the first couple of years after getting your black belt - you leave on a high. Returning after several years,or even decades can be a tough choice - and re-learning the basics, or facing up to the truth that you can't do that jodan ushiro-mawash any more can be hard.

But after a short break I've come back fighting - literally! On the 30th of this month the Hon Yoso Kai Tournament takes place, an invitational competition for Wadokai practicioners from around the country, and I'm competing. In kumite.

I'm not under any pretentions that I could medal or even necesarily survive the opening round,but it's given me a purpose and something to focus on. Each class is focussed on kumite now until the big day so I can "forget" kata and kihon for a few weeks and really try to improve in one area, competition sparring.

I think, just like Lewis and his belts, I need some milestones to help me along the path. I may be bruised and battered, but I'm having fun again!

Updates (if I survive) after the competition.

Until then, Tanoshinde!

Dojo they know it's Christmas?

It's been almost three months since I decided to settle down and chose Wado Ryu as my new Martial Art and it's taken those three months for me to start to feel like a karate-ka again. There are some things that haven't left me during my twenty year hiatus; I stand like a Martial Artist, I sit and kneel like one, hell I even dance like one (every disco is a dojo and you know you do that kata dancing like Elvis too!) but that feeling that you belong takes longer to return.

I'm still a bit of an odd one out at the moment - I don't want to be the black belt that doesn't know the kata or basic kihon patterns and I can get frustrated that I'm not as fit and agile as I'd like to be. Everyone at the dojo is helpful and supportive but I don't feel I'm moving forward as fast as I'd like. I'm still making basic errors which are driving me nuts. Snap me in two like a stick of blackpool rock and you'll find two words written through me; Impatient and Competitive and only having the time to train once a week (and a couple of hours of kata in the kitchen when everyone else is out) is not reaping the rewards I want to see.

It's tough to be reminded that there are no short-cuts, especially when I've been the first to slag off clubs that do take them. Nonetheless there is part of me that envies my son, (that's him on the right) who recently started karate and is a pretty good 9th kyu, winning the 'best newcomer' award in his first tournament. He really wants that next belt and that plastic trophy, and part of me does too.

With Christmas coming there will be a forced break in training and I need to build up the momentum to return as a patient learner who wants to perfect the Wado way.

Because deep down what I really want is to be really bloody good at it.

Ah well, メリークリスマス

Brain No Karate Do

Funny how a few (20) years off Martial Arts will mess with your brain. Flexibility and fitness aside I have no problem keeping up with the other dan grades in kihon. It's not perfect but generally my stances and basic techniques have survived the mothballs. Even my Japanese seems to have been retained in some hitherto unexplored lobe. But there are two fails; the part of my brain designed to react quickly when someone does a reverse roundhouse kick to my head has shrivelled up, the body has lost control of the mind again as years of learning to step into an attack (in order to let it fly harmlessly behind you and to deliver a counter attack) has been replaced by an ape-like auto-response of:

"oh no. Big heavy foot. Head. Must Step back. Clonk" as my sparring partner easily extends their range and lands a satisfying slap.  

I'm trying to take the landed blows as good-naturedly as I can despite the frustration (and embarrassment if my sparring partner is a green belt who I am meant to be helping) but for every one I get right, there are two or three where I react like a monkey.

The other brain-fart is with kata, and I've focussed a lot on kata recently because this is something I've always loved and would like to get back to competing someday. Following some success with Niseishi (it looks untidy but all the techniques are there) I wanted to nail the Pinans, Naihanchi (tekki shodan without the kicks) and Bassai. If I go really, really slowly I can perform Nidan, Shodan and Sandan the wado way and they look pretty tidy. Similarly, keeping someone else in my peripheral vision who isn't senile helps and that way I can get through almost all of them - even the dreaded Kushanku (which I think of as Kanku-dai on acid) and Seishan.

Do these same kata at full speed and I become very creative; merging katas and developing new ones. My favourite invention (and one I can't stop demonstrating) is the "get half way through Pinan Godan and finish with a bit of Bassai".

I have decided to call this new kata Machi Gaeta.

Niseishi.

Mini-blog.

Like all of the Wado Ryu kata the dan grade Niseishi has its Shotokan counterpart; Nijushiho. The name in both styles translates as the rather uninspiring "Twenty Four Moves". Luckily whilst I have previously studies a range of dan grade kata; enpi, kankudai, bassai, jion, jitte, chinte etc I don't remember ever learning Nijushiho, making today's session from Sensei Rick Broughton with me and Alex (a 3rd dan) really enjoyable.

In all honesty there's nothing I can say about this kata that SueC hasn't already said eloquently in her blog, so I'll direct you there for the moment...

http://kickasssuec.blogspot.com/2010/02/niseishi-chinese-dragon-kata.html

Getting to grips with the Wado-Way

Today marked my fourth session with Leicester Karate Association as I re-learn karate the Wado way. As a Black Belt in Traditional Shotokan and it's offspring Tsuyoi Ryu and after a twenty year break, I toured many of Leicester's Best and Worst Martial Arts schools looking for my new Martial Arts home. I've now settled on a new club, a new association and a new style.

So far settling into Wado has been a disconcerting journey, I'm often lulled into a sense of familiarity only to have the mat pulled from under me when a technique or kata is presented with a small but crucial difference. The focus on pressure-points is particularly unusual for me (although I know some Shotokan schools do teach these to some extent). I am pretty much a beginner when it come to this. Last week I made the mistake of admitting this to Sensei Chand, who then kindly demonstrated a range of attacks on me, leaving me with some attractively coloured bruises and recurring cramp in my left calf for the next three nights!

As kata goes, my part-knowledge is more a hindrance than a help. Some sequences of movements from the basic kata are so ingrained from years of practice that I have really struggled not to revert back to them, especially when moving at speed. For the last two weeks I have been working on the Wado version of Bassai. This is similar enough for me to get through but has higher stances, more disjointed moved, and no crescent kicks. I'm hoping that when I approach kata I remember less well; jion, chinte etc, that I'll be able to adopt the Wado approach more readily.

A bit of a treat for all members of the association was that today's session was led by Sensei Kuniaki Sakagami, VII dan. I found today particularly useful then as in a 3.5 hour lesson, Sensei Sakagami spent two hours working through the early Pinan katas and demonstrating bunkai which meant I got to see each move in great detail and examine the differences between the Shoto and Wado approaches. The first striking (!) difference in the Pinan kata (other than the fact that Nidan comes before Shodan which I still don't get) is that we must say goodbye to the basic H pattern of the Shotokan Heian version where only the final moves deviate to the 45° angle. Moves 10, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20 and 21 are now at 45°. The very first move; a gedan barai (a low block) is now a Tetsui Hizo Uchi (side fist strike) but other than that and the shorter stances the next 8 moves are the same. At the end of the kata, the shuto uke (knife hand block at head height) becomes a Shuto hizo uchi (knifehand strike to the spleen) with the cross-over very specifically taught with one hand above the other (shown in this photo).

For Pinan Shodan, the differences, other than the loss of the H shape, are also minor. After the initial haiwan uke (square side block), instead of a jun zuki, augmented jab punch (sometimes bunkai'd as an arm lock) and kizami tzuke, Wado has a side-on gyaku tzuki (not sure if it has a name) followed by an age zuki (rising punch).

I'm hopeful that the more I practice the more the "new" way of doing things will embed itself. My stances are too low and wide still, especially my kokutsu dachi (back stance - with a 70:30 weight ratio on the back leg) which in Wado is almost always a neko ashi dachi (cat stance, 90:10). I'm determined that I adopt the Wado way, as I was in front of the junior grades today and I wouldn't want them to copy me, and get it "wrong".

I really enjoyed today, working with the seniors and revisiting basics, and there were a few opportunities for some take-downs and wrist-locks which is always a bit of fun. I'm starting to feel more at home in my bright new gi and scruffy old black belt.