My Dad reported a Mr. Hat sighting… apparently he drove by in the passenger side of some car and gave Dad a “glaring look.” Dad waved at him. The End.
Class was good tonight. We got an Oedewaldt warmup, replete with a bajillion Japanese situps and a few pushups… I can handle the pushups, but every time I have to live through more than 20 Japanese situps my back starts complaining.
After that, we split up into groups to work with the other belt ranks. I elected to work with my favored charges lately, the green belts. I talked a little more than I wanted to, but we made some progress through basics. We spent quite a bit of time on the dynamics of moving forward and backward in back stance.
We worked on knifehand block spearhand thrust for awhile as well before moving into kata. My biggest concern for the green belts is they seem to phone in the parts of Heian Yondan that need to have some power behind them despite plenty of explanation as to why it needs to be strong in certain parts. They have time to fix it. We’ll see if they do.
The second class was some “lightened up” sparring combinations that lead into an extended walkthrough of Chinte, one of the katas that Sensei Schmidt taught the last time he was here from South Africa. Its a fun kata full of strange techniques that may only appear in this specific Shotokan kata.
One of my favorite techniques in that kata is the Defending Versus Evil Curly move, where you do the two fingered eye poke that the Stooges made famous. I believe Sensei Schmidt may have made reference to this during the last seminar he held around here, which makes it all the more interesting. Also, I find the body dynamics of the middle section of the kata where the circular blocks are done very different and cool.
I like the trend that the class has been taking toward doing some of the oft neglected katas. There’s a wellspring of interesting karate there that we just haven’t explored very much and I think its a worthwhile venture.
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You know, I think I might start leaning toward doing crunches and other ab-workin’ warmups in lieu of the Japanese situps as well. My lower back has become increasingly unhappy with them as of late.
For that matter, I think I may start doing some back strengthening stuff so as everybody gets all their core muscles stronger…. might help fix some of the odd problems everyone has with using their center. Now if I only knew some good ones… hell of a time for to drop off the face of the planet… 
i cant wait to get back to the dojo, i will probably get my ass handed to me, from complete lack of sparring, but on the other hand that is the best way to learn. oh yeah, i forgot to ask, how did the brown belt test go, or did it ever happen yet?
see ya in like 3 weeks.
got to he gym and do the little lower back exersizes, there is a machine for it upstairs. as well as the torso twisters. and i will show you in july.
Happens uhhhh June 22 I think. Sometime during that week. Hopefully someone will get video for you so you can size up the competition.
Well, problem is, in your absence we’ve stopped going to the gym. Actually I think we stopped going before you left.
Anyway yeah that one thing in the back room next to the situp benches (Sarah calls it the vampire machine because you look like a bat) used to be awesome for back exercises. I almost want to go back to Parkside just for that.
yeah, the easiest way to not feel pain when doing situps is to not be in horrible shape. you would think that doing about 10 hours of karate a week would be enough to keep in good shape. you are wrong of coarse. the older you get the harder it is to be in good shape, but it is easier to stay in good shape. once you get there you can do a minimul amount of exersize without reverting to muscle cramps and lazyness. when you are young it becomes exponentially harder to get in shape, especially when you were in great shape then you got out of shape. it ends up consuming all of your time.
i stopped considering them competition after i got like my red belt, except dublair, he should be a brown belt.
i thought it already happened though. wierd.
but i havent been there and i already know the outcome, dublair brown belt, we will leave it at that.
you sounded alittle bitter on that one. you could be a brown belt too if you’d get to a respectable dojo more than once a week
The test has been pending for quite awhile now. I think we’re waiting for The Ripening.
Interesting comment Tomm .
By the by didn’t you start in the dojo a red belt Tomm ?
Signed … Your friend ” them “
Now, now, gentlemen. You can spar when he gets home.
And you probably remember him coming back as a red belt, Dave, but I remember him as a white belt when he was about three feet shorter than he is now.
didnt mean it like that, i dont think i am ready for a brown belt. the more i think about it i dont think i was ready for one when i was at the dojo. I was just sort of rushing everything, trying to get better, i may have been getting better physically but i dont think i did anything to better grasp the concepts, and i noticed that the only one out of the group that seemed as though he was well rounded was dublair.
I am begining to realize that i do infact have all the time in the world, and i should spend more of it trying to grasp the concepts rather than the physical aspects.
i havent competed since juniorhigh track. I never consider people in a class with me as competition, we are all there to learn. and for your information i started the dojo when i was about 5 at the boys and girls club, the only reason i stopped going was because my dad had a heart attack and that made it difficult to get to pekin 2 times a week. I came back as a red belt when i got a drivers liscense.
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