Redding Shotokan Karate

Redding Shotokan Karate is proud to welcome godan Jim Sagawa to host a Shotokan Karate of America practice at the Sun Oaks Tennis & Fitness club on Saturday March 8, 2008!

Mr. Sagawa, a senior student of Master Tsutomu Ohshima, will lead a 3-hour practice starting at 11:30am. This is a rare opportunity for all SKA students to learn from and practice with one of SKA's legendary godans. » read the entire item »

Our class sizes are slowly creeping up. Of course, I expect these things to be cyclical, having seen literally hundreds of people join and drop classes. However, it's a LOT of fun to have 12, 15, 18 (Monday's class!) students kickin' it in that small room. It poses an interesting class management issue, but that's something we need to learn to handle. » read the entire item »

Special Training West starts today, in San Jose, sans me. The day after Christmas, I was running on the treadmill, a strong Special Training performance in mind, when I felt a slight ... tweak ... in my left hip joint, perhaps somewhere near the psoas muscle. Thinking I'd merely overworked something, I slowed down, decreased the incline, and finished the run.

The next day I had sciatica down my left leg, and by the weekend could hardly lift my left foot off the ground. » read the entire item »

Another value of extended practice: Your faults show up in vivid detail, in a format you can't ignore: pain.

Try doing 20 or more of your favorite kata.

• Don't make too much of a pause between repetitions.
• Don't stop and study a particular technique or sequence.
• You don't even have to do it hard (although the lesson is clearer and perhaps even different if you do).

Just do the 20.
» read the entire item »

While practicing Tekki Sandan this morning, I was thinking about applications (bunkai), and why we move from side to side in these kata. If you've ever heard me talk about bunkai before, you might have heard me say, "You're breathing the same air!" as your opponents. » read the entire item »

This morning, Lynette gave me a DVD full of pictures to play with - somewhere near 117, I think. I spent more time than I'd like to admit today, sorting through the pictures, playing processing games with them, and then re-sizing for the Web.

I ended up with 37 for publishing; I've uploaded three of my favorites this evening. The rest will have to wait until I can do a batch upload. I will be checking with the members who are in the pictures to see if they're ok with me posting them. Of course it's their choice! » read the entire item »

We're off to Santa Barbara (Carpinteria, actually) for the year-end practice with Ohshima Sensei on Saturday, Dec. 1, 2007. There will be an additional practice on Sunday, but none of us can stay that long.

Instead of the usual two people (Hiroko and me) on these trips, we're bringing ... eight! Could have been nine, but illness took one of us out.

Back with a report on Monday! 

Monday's Practice was powerful for me, even though I felt very weak...I've just completed my busy senior season, and now am trying to focus again on my training as we only have one month now before testing, and I've been absent from practice so much these past eight weeks...

We had an intense practice even though we mainly just covered basics, now that Sensei has been recording our practices I think we are all trying harder to perfect our form and stay strong. » read the entire item »

My thanks to Hiroko for video-taping our practices the last few weeks. We have been getting two DVDs a week from her, so sometimes it's hard to keep up with my "educational viewing." However, I find it interesting in a lot of ways. For instance, I have seen Gareth improve markedly lately (although his stances leave something to be desired). I have also noticed many things about myself that urgently need improvement. » read the entire item »

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