Today’s class was very interesting and different.
Firstly we got a surprise visit from Sempi Anthony from the Gold Coast Dojo, it is always great training with him, very uplifting spirit and loves learning more, also brings some educational techniques from what he learns in the Gold Coast Dojo.
We got to focus on our own individual stepping, all step’s in any direction: i was mainly focusing on keeping my heels down and trying to get the whip from my hips. Then we had to add some hand movements, which was easier to work on my hips with, this activity was very helpful for what i want to achieve which is getting more whip into my techniques.                                               We then got to do some Bo work (Shadin) Changing directions and working the hips.

On top of that we got to do some more opponent throwing only using the hips and light arms. which was goo cause i got to work with Sensia Sandra and Anthony, so i go to work with different heights and strengths, which was very helpful as when i done the same throw on both of them i had to alter it so it would work with either their height or strength ect, so i didn’t just get use to doing it that one way. I enjoyed this class very much and i feel as though i have improved with using my hips for the throws instead of just my arms. Also the whip in my hips which i improved a bit in class tonight when the black belt group had to keep repeating Sochin (kata) which is my next grading kata so was good to have time to practise continuously, i focused on the whip in my hips and the pull back for my techniques.

The title says it all. Sunday night I went to bed thinking ‘wow I can’t wait to go to karate tomorrow night, it’ll be so fun!’

Fast forward to the following morning, where getting up later than anticipated resulted in not eating a decent breakfast to get to work on time which resulted in feelings of dizziness and nausea. Plus it was hot.

Despite throwing up, I spent the entire day battling nausea and no desire to eat. Thankfully I managed to shove something down before karate and drink bucketloads of water because that made me feel slightly better.

For a while I didn’t think I would make it to karate that afternoon. I debated saying I was too sick to go, but that’s not the point of the intensive. The intensive is about turning up no matter how horrible you feel. Sure, I requested to take it easy and Sensei Martin and Sandra were more than accommodating, but turning up was the real win. Despite feeling awful, I tried my hardest to challenge myself and stretch a little further and use my hips properly in the final lesson.

My favourite part about training today was that we got to work with lower belts and give them pointers on kata. I love learning new things about kata just so I can pass them on to junior belts and help them improve. Even people around my own belt. I love passing on knowledge and experience and helping someone come closer to their own individual goal. Today allowed me to do that.

The next week is going to be even more challenging than the week past. Last week we were coming off a holiday and my muscles were not used to being pushed. This week represents the finish line in sight and it’s torturous. There’s four more days before we’ve officially survived this training, and then there’s the Saturday beach training to go to as well.

Last week went so fast, and this one will too. It’s only four days. So bring it on!

So tonight’s class was a tad different but was a great lesson
The class was a bit more slow and a focus night.                                                                                       I was able to work on my pull back in class not just for my punches but for everything mainly just getting the pull back to initiate the technique instead of focusing on the technique that’s going out, by focusing on the pull back for it will actually give you more reach and more speed and accuracy for the technique, something that i have to work on quite a bit more but was good to have time for it tonight.

Also another interesting yet kinda difficult thing we focused on tonight was our lower body (legs, hips and feet.) Was understanding how important our lower body is to our techniques, to understand this we have to go through all the kata’s with only using our lower body, just with our hands behind our back. It was quite interesting as we usually forget how critical our lower body is because we are usually mainly thinking about what our arms, chest and head are doing. While we was doing this it made us really work on what our legs were doing so without our arms the technique would still work.

Later in class Sensia Sandra had us black belt’s attack each other and we had to step in and pretty much only use our legs to throw them we could only use our arms mainly just to direct where they were falling. and we was allowed to contact them with our hands until we had stepped in and started to feel them more. its actually a bit surprising how difficult it is sometimes not relying on your arms so much. But it was a great lesson to be learnt and i would really like to do more focusing on this in class. Something i found that not just me but a few of us black belts was doing was they weren’t stepping in with their hips as much as they should of been me also, but as we started doing this it was much easier to put the opponent in an unbalanced position so it was then much easier to through them or disable them

Ooooooh we’re halfway there, WOOOAHHH LIVIN ON A PRAAAAYER!

That’s right. We are halfway through the intensive and looking at the weather forecast next week, it’s not getting any cooler. It’s supposed to be even hotter. This means bringing three water bottles instead of two, and a towel to wipe the sweat off my face.

This past week has been one of the most challenging of my time at karate. Throughout the nearly eight years I’ve been at the dojo I have never done an intensive or pushed myself this much. I calculated the hours I was at the dojo this week at 20 hours. That’s almost one entire day at the dojo.

For the first three days my body was so sore I had to roll out of bed because my arms were too sore to lift my body. The soreness lessened on Thursday and was nearly entirely gone by Friday, except for my legs from doing these splits.

Now, on Saturday, it’s completely gone.

I thought getting up at 5 every morning would be the biggest challenge. It wasn’t. The biggest challenge was peeling my sweat-soaked gi off after every session. It got incredibly sticky. Getting up was the easy part. The morning classes were quite enjoyable and prepared me for the day ahead. Doing exercise in the morning really makes you feel like you’ve done something productive and the endorphins makes it easier to look forward to the day, no matter if you have a full day of work ahead.

During the holidays I felt so fat and unhealthy because of the lack of exercise. Now I feel fitter and stronger and not fat at all. And that feeling is so great for my self-confidence.

I’m proud of everything I put forward during class, even the absolutely terrible techniques I put forth during speed training. Each class I pushed myself to do better and try even harder. And I benefited from it.

Did I hyperventilate? No.

Did I get a stitch? No.

Did I ever feel like fainting? No.

Did I give up? No.

It might not seem like a big deal, but given my recent track record when rocking up to karate, it’s a big difference. You need a balance between mind and body to be able to perform well and recently I’ve been unbalanced. With both my mind and body working strong and working together.

Not only has my mind and body been balanced, but my life outside the dojo as well. Usually I work without a chance for relaxation, but this week I took some time off of doing things to just sit and let everything relax. Even taking an hour out of each day to go fishing, play a game or read a book was enough to prepare me for work and another karate session. The balance between working hard and resting is what allowed me to fully energise between each session. And having a balanced diet helped too I guess.

At least one of the two weeks is over and the finish line is in sight. We’ll just have to take it day by day and see what comes out of it.

Definitely was a great week of karate I’ve enjoyed every single lesson I’ve attended so far, yes of course its been a struggle with the heat and the cramped muscles but that’s why I’ve loved it. It makes you work harder and there’s nothing better then the feeling of accomplishment right after you’ve done a big high speed activity and you get to the end and your hearts racing and you have sweat streaming down your face. I personalty love it just makes me feel as though I’ve pushed my self to my limit and higher.

I’ve added a few photos and videos to display what we’ve done through this past week. Great effort from everyone that I’ve had the privilege of doing the intensive with, its great to see that everyone has kept up the great work throughout the whole week. Also a thank you for lifting me up in class and helping me push through each class and helping me work harder and faster.

Lots of FUN!

Yes i will admit i’m looking forward to a bit of relaxing time over the weekend,, watching some movies, sleeping more and having some me time. But i am very much looking forward to the week to come. I’m sure there is much more to do that we have not done yet, and i’m looking forward to some more speed training as it will be more then helpful for the student who gets the scholarship to Japan as circumstances with be much more intense over there.

Training for the scholarship great work guys 🙂 All this extra work is great for not only training for the scholarship but helping us learn more and moving towards our next steps and our goals we want to achieve for this year coming.

Ill see everyone bright and early Monday morning, but for now have a good weekend, don’t get to lazy though haha.

So, in class tonight we done many things, Conditioning was one of them. We got challenged on how many we could push out in a one time period of 2 minutes, this was for each conditioning activity (push ups, sit ups, squat kicks and then recently added bur-pees.) These are all very critical criteria to work on for stamina, agility and intensity. push up’s are great because they build up the muscles in the arms.  Martial arts include lots of punching,  and so the push ups build up the arm muscles; helping you push out more punches in a shorter time period without your arms tiring. Sit-up’s are great as they work the ab and stomach muscles, no matter what your doing in karate your ab muscles are always contracting, so it is good to build up your stomach muscles. Squat kicks are another good one as they really get in there and are great for the upper leg muscles; you definitely need them strong for kicking and holding certain stances and positions. Also the newly added  bur-pee’s – so today in class we all had 2 minutes on each one, I was actually very happy with my outcome. I completed my 100 sit up’s, 100 squat kicks, and for a person who has never really done bur-pee’s ever, I got up to 62. I am very happy I could push that many out. However for the push up’s yes, I had perfect structure from head to toe and reaching all the way to the ground and all the way back up, but I could only push out 56, so i definitely need to work on them more, specially being a black belt.

Another thing I loved about tonight’s class, we did another lot of high intensive and high speed basics and then kata. We was also challenged to go through all the advanced kata up to the highest one we knew as fast as we could with better form and making our way back down to the lowest advanced kata (shihohi) and see how many times we could get through it. As we was going through all of this, Sensei Sandra was saying that it will be a lot more harder and intense in Japan. I don’t know about anyone else but that made me think, well I have to train harder and faster and push aside the fact that I had a massive stitch in my stomach. All the muscles in my body were throbbing and I made sure I pushed myself harder and faster. I made myself keep up with the fastest person in the group or get ahead of them, which I did and I pushed myself harder even more. I’m sure I`ll get lots more time through-out the rest of the 2 week intensive to get heaps of chances to work more on that and I look forward to more challenges to come.

In this mornings class, we went through some high speed stepping and punches. Asking our self how to get more speed in our stepping and how to get to the finishing position quicker.
Keeping everything to the centre is the answer to get the speed, for example when stepping making sure you have shime keeping those thighs scraping against each other with every step, keeping those elbows in at all times and keeping the head well positioned and not moving around. When i put all that into play i found i had much more speed especially while doing Rin-Tan and Hun-Tan, i also had more stability as i was spinning to get to the end position. I found it very helpful and for a morning class was good for y mind to focus on. I’m looking forward to do some more focusing on that in the 9:30 am class coming up