The second day of training is finished. I missed the morning classes due to work commitments but tonight’s class sure made up for it. My muscles are screaming but I have never been more excited for the upcoming two weeks! I hope to build my muscle endurance and extend my mental stamina over the intensive program. This quote encompasses the reason I am challenging myself to do every class possible over the next two weeks, not just participating but by extending myself.

“Your body can stand almost anything, its your mind that you have to convince.”

Evening Classes:

Kids Classes: It is becoming easier to take off the teachers hat and just train. I have done many years of leadership so helping out the younger students comes naturally now, but by being a good role model and helping out non verbally has assisted me in my growth. This is a great skill as there is a time and a place for talking, but also a time for the ‘just train’ attitude. This is a very mental skill and through my university studies in coaching I have found that kinetic instructing/training (physically) is one of my preferred styles.

In the advanced class we threw on some bogu and jumped into some kumite skills. This was another instance where I had to brush off the cob webs. We focused on three elements of an attack; distance, speed and accuracy.  Even on a swinging bag this can be difficult to execute. We also worked on how to generate reach, I came to the conclusion that I need to bend my knees more and turn my hips more!

Adult Class: Tonight I trained as if I was competing. Hopefully at the end of this intensive I have purged my Christmas over eating and gotten my beach body back! The first half of the class Sensei Sandra stretched us and evaluated everybody’s capabilities after the break. She must have thought we were pretty capable because she put us through our paces after a quick drink break. While performing every kata as I was at a tournament I had only one focus; to enter. While stepping or changing stances, instead of turning the back foot away from the centre, I tried to generate the feeling of entering / like I was throwing a partner. This helped me with my pull to the centre throughout the class. 

I am eager to find out what lessons can be learnt throughout the next week and a half of training!

Two weeks off of regular training and jumping straight into a two week training intensive! What a way to dust off the cobwebs. This mornings class we split into two groups, juniors and seniors. Sensei Martin took the seniors and we did every kata from kihon dosa ichi to the highest we knew. I enjoyed starting the intensive with a fast pace review.

6am Morning Class:

Starting training at 6am wasn’t a struggle as I start work at 5am most days, but my favourite part was training beside new karate-ka. I learnt so much by watching students that I haven’t met before, the way their bodies move and how they execute techniques, makes me remember that you can learn from anybody. I hope that through the next two weeks I can learn more from these students.

Afternoon Class:

The adult class 6-8pm is where you’ll usually find me, but today I started at 3:45  with the little champions. I brought my little sister in to train early with me and she enjoyed training with the under 8yo so much.

The main focus tonight was keeping your head still during kata. Being a female with long hair it is easy to distinguish when my head wobbles as my hair wiggles. I can remember Sensei Helen pulling me up on this multiple times when I was an orange belt so it was good to touch base tonight. When Soke sensei visits, he always emphasises eye focus and keeping your head up straight as it is the basis to a good technique. First basic eye focus, second body, third strong stance to execute the technique. 

Was a great first day back getting into the swing of things. Looking forwards to what the next two weeks can throw at me!

Well the 2-week intensive is already coming to an end, wrapping up tomorrow with beach training from 6-7:30 at mooloolaba and the usual Saturday classes at the dojo for those who attend them. I’m expecting it not to be too hot at the beach tomorrow since its early in the morning but that will depend on what the sun and wind want to do, either way we will be able to go swimming!

It has been a good week of training and plenty of basics have been reinforced with some exploring of new content as well. Being at the dojo is a great place to clear your mind, it really doesn’t matter what’s concerning you at the time. Once you start training it all goes out the window and you find yourself focused and thinking about training and technique or not thinking at all and just enjoying training your body. My feet are covered with blisters upon blisters, so I’m going to have to toughen the soles of my feet up a bit haha

It may be some months away but I would love for as many people possible to come to the karate camp on the gold coast this year, it is fun and full of training and good times for people of all ages and ranks. I always have a good time training and socializing with karate members. I would also like to promote the tournaments this year, I understand that sometimes they can be a nerve-racking experience especially the first couple times (trust me, they still are for me), but it’s a great way to put all your hard work to the test. And whether you place or not is not that important, it’s just about giving it your best. Everyone that runs and participates in the tournaments are very friendly and helpful. So, I look forward to seeing everyone again and some new faces I don’t usually see at these events.

Now for the super Saiyan of the week award. Saiyan’s are an elite warrior race who are obsessed with training their bodies, especially in fighting styles and martial arts to become the strongest fighters in the universe, to continually improve themselves. They fully dedicate themselves to their training.

Not just this week, but over the 2-week intensive period, this person has attended every class possible at the dojo (I’m pretty sure) and always trains 100%, making it very difficult for me not to choose him. It is hard to try and keep up with his continually improving technique and speed and I’m sure it won’t be too long before he is a force to be reckoned with in the kumite haha so the Super Saiyan award goes to Bailey!

Super Saiyan Bailey!!

Bailey powering up before he goes super Saiyan!

It continues to be a productive week, just a couple more days to go though and I’m looking forward to the beach training at Mooloolaba on Saturday, I hope many of my fellow students will be able to attend as more is always merrier at special training events and we get to swim afterwards or during the training. I also heard everyone gets to try and throw sensei martin in the water which will be challenging haha but we will see what happens!

We had an interesting session of throwing and sumo style wrestling in class yesterday where I got thrown backward while I jumped up by Andrew, it was a decently hard fall but very fun. We then lined up in order of size and weight and had a mini instant elimination round, it made it easier that we could drive the opponent out of the ring as well, which I used. Jack came up against me and there was a good wrestle before we both went down at the same time while kneeing each other… ouch haha though I feel that everyone starts out with good technique in mind, but when the wrestle gets more intense it sort of goes out the window and all sorts of interesting things and methods happen.

Its only Wednesday and the fatigue and muscle soreness has set in, so stretching is a number one priority at the moment. I’ve been waking up before my 5:30 alarm though which is very unusual for me as I love my sleep ins, should probably go to sleep earlier though haha.

On another note, I’ve been finding it hard to increase my weight, as my goal is to be above 75kg for this year’s tournaments so I feel fair to compete in the 75+kg division and have some extra weight to throw back at my opponents in the ring. I started in October when I bought a bag of mega mass protein, I used that and started to lift low rep, heavy weights in bench press, deadlifts and curls. I also ate as much as my stomach could possibly hold every day (which is just as much effort as working out sometimes surprisingly). This lasted just over 2 months, I have reached between 72-74 kgs depending on the day but still can’t crack the 75kg mark. I have since become lazier in my eating habits but maybe that’s just my body’s natural weight, or maybe I’m not trying hard enough haha

I’m still looking for my super Saiyan of the week, though I’m pretty sure I have a good idea who it is, so I am looking forward to trying to remember how to use Photoshop tomorrow haha

Chito-Ryu karate dojos have many events on the calendar that make it an interesting and fulfilling experience year after year, especially for the committed student. Events such as tournaments, gradings, beach training sessions, karate camps, guest instructors, specialty events and sometimes for the fortunate student, a trip to train at the Sohonbu in Japan. All of this is in store for 2018, so we should train hard and keep pushing towards being our best at these exciting times.

In 2017 there was a special event, being the Soke Cup, International Chito-ryu Karate Championship tournament that took place in Japan last year. This was an amazing experience for everyone who attended not only for the excellent karate competition between students from various nations, but to explore a beautiful country and its culture which I’m sure everyone appreciated very much. The next Soke Cup will be held in Canada in 2019 and it should be an equally spectacular time.

It is great to look forward to the highlights in the years to come for inspiration along the way, but it is the training in each class of the average week where we do the majority of the work. Without the hard work and commitment from all students of Chito-Ryu Karate, these events would not be feasible to run. So, if you don’t already, you should find an inspiration in every class you undertake, be excited and eager to learn as much as you can, we should be happy to push our bodies to new limits instead of thinking of it as work. Think of every class as a highlight in your journey to attain your next rank!

Week two of the intensive has begun, we started off in the morning with some jogging and sprints, kick combinations at jōdan, chūdan and gedan, and speed kata. The afternoon sessions I attended where challenging and fun, doing different sweeping kicks which were interesting to attempt! The final class held some general fitness and movement followed by more speed kata, some good rubber band analogies for increasing our kicking speed, accuracy and power, and ending with a kumite drill, it’s always fun when you get thrown during kumite/kumite drill!

P.S. I will be awarding someone who I personally think has put in a lot of effort and is showing improving teqniques across the board the Super Saiyan of the week award!! (For those that know dragon ball Z) this will be a special mention in my Friday blog, and will include a poor attempt of me trying to transform a picture of them into a Super Saiyan with blonde hair and glowing yellow energy around them haha with his/her permission of course.

2018 has come quick, after a great closure to the 2017 karate calendar with the annual Christmas party and training at cotton tree, we also had a water bomb fight held at the dojo where a lot of us enjoyed cooling down after training.

We all enjoyed a couple weeks off for Christmas and new year’s holiday, many parties were had and plenty of tasty foods were consumed in large quantities I’m sure. Leaving myself at least, full of food and muscles lazy. Its great getting caught up in relaxing and losing track of time, as I didn’t feel the transition from 2017 to 2018.

Kicking off the New year though, we jumped straight into a 2-week intensive at our dojo, turning Christmas flab to ab. It’s always a challenging 2 weeks getting your body back into drive after getting accustomed to sleeping in until 10 and playing video games most days (for me anyway). And it was not until now for me that it’s felt like a new year, when university and karate has started back up and kicked into gear.

Its great being back in the dojo and seeing everyone training hard, and continuing to develop their fitness and technique, I can already see improvements in many people after training hard in 2017 and having some time off to distil what we all learnt last year.

Week 1 of the intensive has swiftly come to an end and I have enjoyed returning to the basics, focusing on shime and the path of each step, flexibility in my legs with shiko dachi splits, revisiting kata’s (specifically Chinto). Though my highlight for this week is the kobudo class we had today, I love learning new kata with Nunchaku and Sai, it’s always an… interesting experience!

It’s exciting, the prospect of a new year and what it will bring to all of us, I know everyone will continue to work hard and push their boundaries. I’d like to wish everyone a great 2018 and I look forward to seeing everyone in the dojo over the next week of the intensive and throughout the year!