Redding Shotokan Karate

Sorry.

Yesterday I covered class for Hiroko, who was (still is) in Boise, Idaho as a guest instructor. It sounded like the Boise crew was going to treat her right, and she was going to reciprocate. Hopefully she'll post a complete report.

Peter and I were the only Saturday students. We practiced ippon gumite and sanbon gumite the whole time, and spent a lot of time talking, experimenting, and practicing hip movement and footwork. Thanks to Peter's serious attitude and practice ethic, I learned a couple of new things about kumite and hip movements.

One of the new items was a realization about why I could move to the inside on the third attack of sanbon gumite when the attacker started with the right hand, but I couldn't when the left hand was the initial attack. It turns out the first foot movements were different between left and right, and I'd end up in an awkward position from which to move inside. Because of this I'd always instinctively move to the outside.

Peter might have thought me a bit loopy, because after the realization happened I kept saying, "Thank you! Thank you!" as we practiced.

As to the hip movements, something I knew already but found the words for yesterday: "When backing up, move your hips with the leg that's going back. When going forward, move your hips with the leg that's moving forward." Sounds easy and obvious, but you'd be surprised how many of us move our back legs farther back (a shuffling movement) and leave our hips - and, therefore, faces - still forward. Or, when we step forward our foot and leg go forward but our hips are still over the back leg, which causes us to lean forward.

Stepping a bit farther away from the subject, so I can view the forest instead of just trees, so to speak...as Jim Sagawa said, "You have to move your body." I'd have never learned these things yesterday without the concentrated and honest practice we did. Talk is good, but you never understand until you've practiced what you talk about.