I recently had a class where my Sensei, Sensei Noia, had us work on a basic kata, Taikioku Shodan, in three different ways.

Taikyoku Shodan with kicks

The idea is to do the kata, and after each move, you add a rear leg kick and put the kicking leg back down behind you, then step into the following technique with a kick after each move. It goes as follows:

Downward block to your left, front snap kick with your rear leg and put it back behind you
Step and front punch, front snap kick with your rear leg and put it back behind you

Continue this for all 20 moves. You can also change up the kicks by doing roundhouse kicks or side thrust kicks instead of front snap kicks.

Taikyoku Shodan with spinning kicks

The next variation was doing the kata with a spinning back kick after each technique.

Downward block to your left, spinning back kick with your rear leg and it back behind you.
Step and front punch, spinning back kick with your rear leg and put it back behind you.

Again, continue this for all 20 moves. When putting the leg back behind, you can kick and pull it back the same way it came or follow through with it, doing a full 360 and still putting it down behind you.

Taikyoku Shodan with an extra punch

The third variation adds a punch to each move.

Downward block to your left, reverse punch, and downward block again
Step and punch, reverse punch, and front punch again

Continue this for all 20 moves and work at doing it smoothly as you progress.

Many options for good kata training

Now you have three new options for your basic kata training, and I am sure you can come up with more. Let me know in the comments if you have ideas for other basic kata options.

Often, I get questions from fellow Karate students on how they can improve their Karate. Many times, the simple answers are, pull your draw hand back, bring your knee up higher before you kick and breath along with the other standard things. Those answers can help but what I have found, if you really want to improve your karate, start teaching others.

Sometimes, the student becomes the teacher

Watching others while they train is a massive benefit to your own training. You see things that others are doing, that you might not be doing while training. When you are teaching you can see a students foot position or the way they execute a technique that you can apply to you own training. It’s those tiny details you see that you can use to improve your Karate. When you are training yourself, you are focusing on your own movements but when you are teaching, you can get a clear picture of how others do the same movements you are doing.

Even beginners can help you improve

After teaching Heian Shodan thousands of times, I started to notice something interesting. Most new students will follow exactly what they are being taught. This was an eye opener for me since I noticed that a group of students I was working with were all learning forward while doing their techniques. At that time, I had an issue with my hips and lower back which caused me to learn forward when executing my techniques and almost all of the students I was working with had the same leaning posture.

Even simple things like incorrect hand placement at the end of a technique can be seen as if you are looking into many mirrors of yourself. This not only helps you find your errors but it also helps make you a better teacher and forces you to focus on making your techniques and posture correct when teaching them.

Carry on the Art

This is one area about being volunteer instructor that is important to me. Many years ago, one of my instructors, Sensei Cieplik, told a story about when he asked his instructor how he could repay him for all that he taught him and the answer he received was, find two students that will carry on our art. The idea of what was learned being lost really bothered me and from that moment, my reasons for volunteering as an instructor changed.

Even though Shotokan Karate has evolved over the years and now with the inclusion of Karate in the Olympics, there are still fundamentals that are needed to keep the essence of the art alive. These fundamentals might be very specific to individual instructors, such as techniques or philosophy, but if they are forgotten, future students will never understand what the masters were trying to pass down to them. These fundamentals might come to you in a short time or take many years of training for you to understand but if you are are persistent and patient in your training, they will come to you and make you and maybe others better Karateka.

If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions, you are not alone, but there is hope and you can make your stances better.

The stance between the stance

The stance between the stance is a simple drill to help you improve all of your stances but today, we are going to focus on the front stance. This concept was shared with me a few years ago from my Sensei, Sensei Cieplik.

• Start in a cat stance with most of your weight on your back leg
• Tuck your hips under your pelvis
• Make sure that your hips are level and not tilted
• Tense your lower abdominal muscles
• Push your hips forward while moving your front foot forward.
• Bring your back leg up into a cat stance position and repeat.

Some key points are:

• Your starting cat stance position can have hips open or closed depending upon what you are working on.
• If you hips aren’t tucked, your upper body will lean forward as you move.
• Keeping your hips as level as possible will help remove any extra movements or wobbles when you are moving.
• Keeping your lower abdominal muscles engaged will help you keep your posture upright while moving.
• Initiate the movement from the hips.
• You can also perform this drill moving backward.

Even though this type of stance sounds very simple, you can get in an excellent workout just by doing these movements. You can also use this type of training if you have limited space to train in. My other article about Small space Karate training can give you a few more ways to train your stances using this concept.

Great kihon makes great kata and kumite.  This is something that two of my Senseiâ€s, Sensei Cieplik and Sensei Brien, have shared with me over the years.

For those unfamiliar with Japanese, kihon means basics.  Basics are a technique or combination of techniques that make up the majority of training that many of us do in the Karate dojo.  For example, stepping forward with a front punch is one of the most fundamental basics.

Great kihon equals great kata

Your kihon can have a huge impact on your kata.  Without good kihon, your kata will look much like a group of memorized movements or a dance instead of Karate movements.  These simple movements that we do up and down the floor in our Karate classes can be a determining factor on how good your Karate will be overall.

The low stances, hip rotation and precise hand movements that we work on can take our katas from looking good to great. We could easily take a gymnast or other athlete and teach them the movements from any kata but their kata would not look anything like a kata performed by someone who practiced a great deal of kihon.  The time on the dojo floor, doing the same techniques many thousands of times, over and over again, directly applies to the how great someones kata can become.

Great kihon equals great kumite

Here is another area where many people will argue that good kihon isnâ€t needed when your goal is to be great at kumite.  This is an area where you could take a good fighter and show them how to score a point but without the kihon from Karate class, they would never become a champion.  All those low stances develop strong, powerful legs for shifting and shuffling and doing those basic techniques gives the student the ability to punch precisely with extreme control which are required to be great at kumite on the national and international level.

Kihon that my Sensei shared with me

Below is a class that I did almost every week for seven years with Sensei Cieplik before he retired in August 2013.  This class was heavy in kihon and with the exception of one step sparring and some shifting and shuffling drills, there was no partner free sparring.  We did do kata in these classes but the majority of the kata work was with the five Heian katas, Tekki Shodan, Jion and Bassai Dai.

Kihon specific Karate class

A formal bow is not required but it does help

We always started this class in seiza with a formal bow.  After moving into seiza, the leader (the highest ranking Shodan below Sensei) would say Mokuso (meditate), we would close our eyes for about 60 seconds and clear our minds from outside thoughts allowing us to focus solely on the training to come.  Next, the leader would say Mokuso Yamae (meditation stop) and we opened our eyes.

Next, the leader would say Shomen Ni Rei (bow to the shomen – in our case it was the flags but in an ideal setting, it would be a photo of Funakoshi Sensei), we put the left hand then right hand on the floor, bent at the waist and lowered our head to show respect to the leaders of our Art and the art itself.

We then brought our body back to the upright position and the leader would say, Sensei Ni Rei (bow to the Sensei (teacher)) where we bent from the waist again, hands on the floor as above and lowered our head while facing Sensei.

For the last part of the formal bow, the leader would say Senpai Ni Rei (bow to fellow classmates of higher rank) and all of the lower rank students would turn towards all the higher rank students, still in seiza, and bow the same way as above.

Sensei would stand up first, then give a hand motion for the Shodanâ€s and above to stand up, then he would give a hand motion for the lower rank students to stand up.

Although the formal bow is not needed when training by yourself, I have found that it does help me get more focused before I train.

Warm up

For the warm up, Sensei would always have us start out with some kicking drills.  Below is a sample of what we did before each class to get the blood flowing and we would do more if Sensei felt that we werenâ€t ready yet.

The two drills below were fairly standard before each class done with the left leg and right leg forward:

• 20 stationary front snap kicks from a front stance.
• 10 stationary front leg front snap kicks with rear leg front snap kick

If we needed more warming up, Sensei would add the following drills for each leg:

• 10 stationary shuffle up with the rear leg and execute a front leg roundhouse kick
• 10 stationary shuffle up with the rear leg, execute a front leg roundhouse kick, set it back down in front and execute a rear leg roundhouse kick, setting that kicking leg foot down in front which them becomes the front leg and repeat.

The following last part of the warm up was done in every class.  The intention of this drill was more about the group and not just ourselves.  The idea was to execute this technique combination at the same speed as the slowest person in class.  From your peripheral vision, you would look at the person next to you and match their speed and timing.  Once everyone was working together, Sensei would have us stop and start with the other leg in front.  This was an awesome drill that raised the spirit of the entire class.

Start in a front stance with your reverse punch out, do a rear leg front snap kick and switch your hands while kicking, put the kicking leg back down behind you and do a reverse punch. If anyone needs a video of this drill or any of the drills, please leave a comment below and I will record it and add it here.

Next comes the basics…

All of the basics below start from a left leg forward front stance for a 5 count moving forward and backward:

1. Moving forward and back with front punch.
2. Moving forward and back with rear leg front snap kick and front punch.
3. Moving forward and back with rising block and reverse punch.
4. Moving forward and back with downward block and reverse punch.
5. Moving forward and back with inward block and reverse punch.
6. Moving forward and back with outward block and reverse punch.
7. Moving forward and back with outward block, jab and reverse punch.
8. Moving forward and back with inward block, move into horse stance with elbow strike and backfist.

All of the basics below start in a left leg forward back stance for a 5 count moving forward and backward:

1. Moving forward and back with knife hand block.
2. Moving forward and back with knife hand block, front leg front snap kick, move into front stance with spear hand strike.

When executing the back stance, try to keep your weight on your back leg.  Your front foot should be silent when moving into each back stance and it should always lead with your toes not your heels.

All of the basics below start in a horse stance for a 3 count moving first to the right and then to the left:

1. Step across, little toe to little toe in a horse stance.
2. Step across with side snap kick.
3. Step across with side thrust kick.
4. Step across with side snap kick and side thrust kick.

The key to the above four drills is to stay low, keep your stance (feet) in line and try to keep the moving foot or toes of the stepping foot in contact with the floor at all times.

All of the basics above normally took between 25 to 40 minutes depending upon how well everyone was moving and how many times Sensei would have us repeat certain techniques if he felt that we needed more work on them.

Extra basics and more

On some days, Sensei would have us work on either specific self-defense drills derived from the katas, one-step sparring or the following kumite drills.

• Shifting forward and backward with jab
• Shifting forward and backward with reverse punch
• Shifting forward and backward with jab and reverse punch combination
• Shuffle up with front leg roundhouse kick, step down with reverse punch
• Step forward with a long lunge stance and reverse punch

These drills were done without a partner the majority of the time.

Finish up with kata

For all those classes I took over the years, we would do all five of the Heian katas every week.  There were times when we would do each Heian kata once and there were times when we did each kata many times over depending on what Sensei saw.  We also did Tekki Shodan and for the brown belts we would work on Jion and Bassai Dai.  We also worked on specific parts of each kata where Sensei felt that we needed the extra work.

Not often but sometimes, we would also work on the Shodan katas, especially if it was near exam time or if there was a major competition coming up.

When class was over, we would line up and do a standing bow to Sensei.

The proof is in the champions

Many Shotokan champions were born from this type of training in these classes.  These students were not only local tournament champions, many of them went on to become multiple National Champions and World Champions.

I am not going to say that every champion only took this particular class but most of the classes in my Karate club are very heavy in kihon training.  The students that always place well in competition, that I have watched and judged over the years, always have the best kihon when training in class.

If you would like more information about the classes that I have taken over the years, visit my other blog at Shotokanplanet.org. You can find more information about this particular class, that I outlined above, which I took each Thursday from September 2006 to the end of August 2013 in the archives section on that blog.

June 22 marked the 10th anniversary of the day that I started training in Shotokan Karate.  Over the past 10 years I have learned many things, not only about Karate but also about life and I want to share some of those things with you today.

It’s more than just punches and kicks

I started this post with the intention of telling my story about the Karate techniques that I learned but after some hard thinking, I realized that I have learned so much than just punches and kicks.  The greatest thing that I have learned, over the last 10 years, is how much learning Karate can make positive changes in other people’s lives.

Karate has changed my life in different ways, not only physically but in many other areas outside of Karate.   Not only am I more than 30 pounds lighter since I started training, the other areas that it has had the most impact is my self-confidence, the ability to not give up no matter how many times I fail and most importantly, the ability to share my time doing something that helps others with no payment other than seeing someone else succeed both inside and outside the dojo.

It’s all about the students that you help

I have been a volunteer assistant instructor in my Karate club since 2006 and even though I may have started doing so with other intentions, I learned quickly that the real reward is seeing the students I work with succeed.

Not only am I extremely proud of what these students do on the dojo floor, many of them are also excellent people who do great things outside the dojo.  One of the students that I have worked with went on to become a nurse and another student is going to school to learn to become a teacher for children with special needs.  Many other students have grown up to be extremely hard-working young adults who donâ€t believe in limiting on how far they can go in life.

My reward is their success

I have worked with students that had extreme self-confidence issues, that wouldnâ€t look anywhere but down at the floor, who now walk with their head up and look others in the eyes when they talk.  Seeing a scared and shy little child turn into a confident and outgoing young adult is a reward that no money could ever buy.

Many of the younger students that I have worked with started with attention spans a little higher than zero but now they can not only remember all the moves from one kata, they remember the moves from at least a dozen katas.  Some students who started, looking for their parents or just looking all over the place during class now have laser like focus for the entire class.  I always tell the students that I work with, if the building falls down while you are doing your kata, you shouldnâ€t notice it until your kata is finished and I feel that there are many students who could now do it.

One the physical side, I have worked with students who couldn’t do one correct push up but  can now do 25 perfect pushups in a row.  Other students who couldnâ€t run 50 feet can now run laps around the dojo.  I have seen many overweight or underweight students not only get into better than average shape, many of them have bodies that would rival many athletes from almost any other sport.  Kids and even adults who couldnâ€t balance on one leg for more than three seconds can stand on one leg while doing multiple kicks with no wobbling.  The physical transformations that have taken place, before my eyes over the years, is truly incredible and a it certainly proves that Karate training can create strong and healthy bodies.

I cannot take all the credit for these students successes because there are other influences such as good parents, good upbringing and the full time Karate instructors, my mentors, who teach them but there a few moments that I will remember for a long time.

It’s really worth my time

I have two particular memories that really make me understand why I volunteer the hours I do each week helping out.

One student, who was recently awarded her Shodan, came up to my after she received her exam results and thanked me for helping her reach her goal of becoming a black belt.  Thatâ€s a tremendous feeling knowing that you are a part, even if it is a little part, of such a huge accomplishment in a Karate students life.

The second memory is a from a few years back.  It was just before this students exam and I explained to her and the other students how important is was to have spirit.  I told them that they need to kiai louder than anyone else at the test.  The day of her exam I was walking into the building and I heard this extremely loud kiai.  Now this is a young student, maybe 13 or 14 years old at the time, who was very quiet and somewhat shy, in a huge room with a group of 17 other students testing at the same time.  It was her kiai that I heard over of all these other students but the best part was, after her test was over, she came up to me, bowed and said “every time I kiaiâ€ed I thought of what you said to me.”  This is one of those moments, if you are an instructor, where stand up straight, puff up your chest and say “my student!”

Punches, kicks and belt rank is overrated

Itâ€s doesnâ€t matter how hard I can punch, how high I can kick or what my rank is, what matters most to me is the positive impact I can have on a students Karate career with the hopes that this will transfer to their life outside the dojo.

And thatâ€s what I have learned after 10 years of Karate training.

The point that I try hard to get across to them is that the kata begins and ends with a bow.

Why do we bow

There is a great deal of information available about how to bow properly and the reasons why many people bow in Japan but I am going to limit this explanation to a simple word, respect.

Before we begin our kata, even before the ready stance, we bow to show respect.  By bowing we can show respect to our Sensei, our flag, ourselves, an opponent, a judge, an examiner or for almost any other reason but once we bow, our kata has begun.

Your kata has begun, donâ€t fix your hair, you look fine

I often see students bow and then fix their hair, their gi or move any or all body parts even though they are supposed to be prepared for battle.

After the bow is over, you are in a ready stance and prepared to fight.  From there you do your kata, when your kata is finished you move back to ready stance to make sure that there are no more attackers around you and then you bow to end your kata. At the end of your kata you do not fix your gi or anything else until you bow.

Bow to flip the switch

I know that many Martial Artists will poke fun at this tradition but in my mind, I feel that the bow is much like flipping a switch that allows me to change from calm and peaceful to strong and aggressive and then back to calm and peaceful again.

I often think of something similar that my Sensei shared with me.  Before the first bow, you are a tiger in a cage, after the bow, the cage is opened and the tiger does what is needed, after the final bow the tiger is back in the cage.

Please share your thoughts about bowing and kata

I would like hear any thoughts or comments that you have on bowing before kata.  Do you bow or do you skip it and just do your kata?  Why do you bow?

Please leave a comment below.

Now lets watch that same person do the technique in slow motion.  You might see that their starting hand position is not in the correct place or you might even see that they are executing the technique from the upper body only and they are not using their lower body at all.

Hard and fast Karate techniques might not always be correct

If you always do your kata and kihon techniques hard and fast, you can hide these little imperfections behind your speed and power.

We will use the side snap kick from Heian Nidan as an example.  When you execute the side snap kick fast, there is a good chance that someone watching you will see the starting and ending positions only.  You throw the kick, your back fist flys out and then you move into the next technique.

Slow it down

Now lets execute the same technique while moving very slowly and try to answer the following questions:

• Did you have good balance (correct) or did you wobble (incorrect) before throwing the kick?
• Did you bend your support leg (correct) or straighten (incorrect) it before the kick?
• Did your hips extend and retract from the side (correct) or did they stay level (incorrect) when executing the kick?
• Did you pull both hands tightly to the side of your body (correct) or were they loose and somewhere to the front of your body (incorrect)?
• Did you snap the kick all the way back before stepping down (correct) or did you fall into your next stance (incorrect)?
• Did you have good balance (correct) or were you wobbling (incorrect) after the kick?
• Did you keep your body upright (correct) or did you lean forward (incorrect) when executing the kick and backfist?
• Did you turn your head to the side (correct) or keep it forward when executing the kick and backfist?
• Did your draw hand stay on the side of your body, with your elbow pointing behind you (correct) or did it move forward (incorrect) when you executed the backfist?
• Did you snap your hand back (correct) or did you move your hand into the next technique (incorrect) after the back fist?

There are many more examples that I could add to the list above but the point I am trying to get across is, there are a many little details in every move we do and if we only do them fast, we will often miss them.

Take your time, do it right

It is often hard to do a technique slowly and something more painful is trying to do an entire kata slowly and perfectly but the more we explore the actual techniques while doing them correctly, the more complete and effective our movements will be.

Some people might argue that these little details arenâ€t important and that imperfect techniques are still effective enough but would you rather do good Karate or great Karate?

I have to credit one of my Karate Senseiâ€s, Sensei Noia, for giving me this valuable training tip and I want to share it with all of you.  The idea is to do a group of movements that allows you to cover different stances and techniques in an area of about six feet by six feet square depending upon the length of your stances.

You can come up with many small space workouts but here are few that I want to share with you.

I included the photo of the Manji Uke above because that is one of the harder techniques to describe in text.

Workout 1:

From a ready stance:

1. Step into a left leg forward front stance with a reverse punch
2. Pull your left leg back into a cat stance with a low (gedan) knife hand block
3. Move your left leg into a left leg forward back stance with a downward and high outward block (manji uke)
4. Step from the back stance into a right leg forward front stance with a reverse punch
5. Pull your right foot back into a cat stance with a low (gedan) knife hand block
6. Move your right leg into a right leg forward back stance with the downward and high outward block (manji uke)

Workout 2:

From a ready stance:

1. Turn left into a left leg forward front stance with a downward block and reverse punch
2. Pull your left foot all the way back 180 degrees behind you, turn from your hips and do a downward block with reverse punch
3. Turn left 90 degrees into a front stance with downward block and reverse punch
4. Pull your left foot all the way back 180 degrees behind you, turn from your hips and do a downward block with reverse punch.

Workout 3:

From a ready stance:

1. Step forward into left leg forward back stance with a knife hand block
2. Step back with the left leg into a right leg forward front stance with a front punch
3. Step back into a ready stance
4. Step forward into a right leg forward back stance with a knife hand block
5. Step back with the right leg into a left leg forward front stance with a front punch.

Workout 4:

From a ready stance:

1. Step forward into a left leg forward front stance with a downward block and reverse punch
2. Step back into a right leg forward front stance with a downward block and reverse punch
3. Step forward into a left leg forward horse stance with downward block and reverse punch
4. Step back into a right leg forward front stance with downward block and reverse punch
5. Step forward into a left leg forward back stance with a reverse punch

You then do the same moves as above but start with the right leg forward for the first move.

Workout 5:

From a ready stance:

1. Step into a left leg forward front stance with a downward block and a reverse punch
2. Step back into a right leg forward back stance with an upward rising block and a downward block (manji uke)
3. Step left 90 degrees into a left foot forward front stance with a downward block and a reverse punch
4. Step back into a right leg forward back stance with an upward rising block and a downward block
5. Repeat the same moves until your are facing front again, ending up in a left leg forward front stance with a downward block and reverse punch

You then repeat the same moves but this time your start the front stances with the right leg forward and the back stances with the left leg forward.

Workout 6:

From a ready stance:

1. Step into a horse stance
2. Reach with your left hand to the left corner
3. Pivot on your heels, using your hips, into a left leg forward front stance with a reverse punch
4. Keeping your left arm in front, pivot back into a horse stance and double punch ending with your right hand forward.
5. Reach with your right hand to the right corner
6. Pivot on your heels, using your hips, into a right leg forward front stance with a reverse punch.

The key to these drills is not to allow your body to rise up between stances.  Try to keep your body as close to the same height as possible.

No more excuses that you do not have enough room to train

Now you have six Karate workouts that you can do in a small amount of space.  You can also do these workouts with slow or fast tempo when moving between each stance.  You can do the techniques with perfect form or for all out power too.  Use your imagination to make these workouts effective for what you are trying to accomplish and how you want to train at that moment.

Give these workouts a try and let me know how they work for you by leaving a comment below.

There was a lot of good competition since this is the qualifier for the upcoming Karate Nationals that will be held in Las Vegas in mid July.

The mats were very slick but the competitors held it together and did some excellent katas.

I thought that it might be a good time to go back to basics and start trying it on people who might not expect it.  So, I rode my bike down to the local Walmart and thought it would be fun to try it on unsuspecting customers.

Start sweeping in the toy section

I figured that I would start sweeping kids first.  They are small and their balance hasnâ€t really developed yet so I felt that they would be good targets to test this out.  Needless to say, kids are easy to sweep and they normally fall down so you can make a fast getaway.  After about five good sweeps I started feeling pretty good about myself.

Senior citizens can be feisty when swept

The next group I started to train with was the Senior citizens.  One word of caution, if they have a cane, you need to move away very fast because some of them can swing that cane fast and hard.  After about a half dozen sweeps and only taking one hit in the forearm from an older women with a cane it was time to move on to the next level

Women will try to run you down with a shopping cart

My next target was young women.  They can move very fast when provoked but my skills are really starting to improve so I felt that I could easily take them down.  After a few good sweeps I was feeling pretty cocky now and I saw a women not paying attention while pushing a shopping cart.  I thought that she would be an easy target but little did I know that she would chase me around the store with the shopping cart after my sweep.  She was able to hit me only once in the butt with the cart but luckily, my ninja skills prevailed and I was able to duck into the mens changing room to get away from her.

Six foot tall muscle man with tattoos

After all the shopping cart incident, I looked to show off my black belt skills and started looking for tough guys to practice on.  I found a couple guys my size and needless to say, they fell quick.  They tried to chase me but I ran into the ladies underwear department which stopped them in their tracks.  I looked for someone that was more my skill level and found a six foot tall, 260 pound guy with tattoos all over his arms and head.  The tattoo that said “I eat black belts for lunch” made him a perfect target for my advanced sweeping skills and I proceeded to take him down.

Needless to say, this guy was my toughest opponent but I was able to take him down before all the lights in the store went out.  Oddly enough, I saw what looked like a fist right before the lights when out.  Had those lights not have gone out, I wouldnâ€t be typing this article from my hospital bed right now but I know I could have taken him.

Maybe I will try this again on April 1st next year.

Happy April Fools day everyone!