Weights – 20kg 10×6 with 10 breaths in between
100×2 leg-lift things
weighted squats 10×3
Bagwork – slaps, shutos, flicky drill. 2 mins freestyle striking with boxing gloves.
Then clubbells for about 20 mins
Then some yoga, concentrating on hip-opening stuff. This is a big problem area and i’m going to have to focus on it.
Intuflow to music.
Midday – Had some time free so trained with the Gkr Consultants. Hard basics, kicks with partner. Kata. No comment.
Evening – Gkr Senior class – a grading class for the lower grades so very much to format. Hard basics, combos, kata and at last some sparring. The sparring is good because I get different people to try stuff out on. At the moment I’m working on dominating, moving forward, testing/feeling the guard, pushing the opponent back. Trying to get in close so the big kickers can’t use their weapons so well. Not too bad, I can stop most of the incoming, but I still tend to meet up with an untidy mess of arms close in and don’t quite know how to capitalise on the position. I think elbows are the answer and much more lateral movement.
First Class
Three groups, rotated – a sequenced blocking drill with Wayne, a moving kicking drill with Ben and a striking/stance drill with me. Then split the kids off for a game of Sensei’s Ship which is riotous, while I took adults for kata and light sparring. Stretches to warmdown.
The whole class gave a huge round of applause to Matt Latimer (trains with me in the second class) who won a silver medal for kata at the Gkr World Cup in Melbourne last weekend. A huge achievement for Matt, totally fantastic. At seventeen he is now a sensei training with the seniors and helping teach, and his journey from its challenged beginnings has been completely remarkable.
Second Class
Sparring to warmup. concentrating on relaxation, distancing and circular movement.
Then three drills all starting with reception/absorbtion and followed by various close quarter counters and finishes, lots of elbows and short strikes. The group of eight ranged from a ten year old boy through teenagers of varying physicalities, my sempai Janet, a very tall man and a very large man – so we workshopped varying the responses to suit the different physical partner combinations. ie do what works for you.
Very, very pleasing and they all enjoyed. They’re starting to understand a little more about making techniques flow and segue, about positioning, and just a little about more realistic practise. Its not Laird and Carl, thats for sure, but its not normal Gkr either….
No quote this week but talked about zanshin, kime, mushin.
Ashihara
Lunatic warmup – got to give Sensei credit for coming up with novel tortures – usual hard strength warmup with added partnerwork - stair running, fast situps drills, wheelbarrow race including a step, and piggy-back race round the dojo, up and down the stairs and back again. My partner was a slightly built MMA guy who is cross training with the group, he was awesome.
Then some combination air-drills with sabaki and strike-kick combos on the huge kickbags. My back spinning back kicks looking better, thankyou Rick.
Finished with partnerwork and takedowns. I need to spend some time learning how to fall properly, its something thats just been missed in all of this odd mixture that I do, no one has covered it.
I’m always challenged by this stuff. Good class.
I haven’t posted – in my mind I thought I had updated last week…so a big catch-up, here goes:
Tuesday Teaching Night
First Class – another big group so we did circuit training – split them into ten groups of four or so, 10 stations around the hall with different combinations/drills at each. Ran through it twice. Nothing new or unusual in the drills but they all loved the different format – I was quite surprised how much. Which illustrates a very important thing that senseis in this style can often forget – people like to be busy doing, not listening to sensei rabbit on about technique.
Second Class
A range of stuff, mainly strikes and kicks from a front lunge. Also played with ”olli-uke” - double block to the side against round kick at any height. Strength, conditioning.
Quote was “Nothing is impossible to a willing mind”
Wednesday- GKR
Couldnt get to evening training because of a late interview so I joined the GKR sales group for training at midday instead.
Worked on basics in long stance, a lot of kokutse dachi. I was badly stiff and awkward (Monday night still taking its toll). Then a leg strength continous round kicking drill with partner – always nasty but I actually enjoy it. A little kata to finish.
Friday
Lagoon walk, Intuflow to music, very relaxing.
Saturday
Little Dark Side Circuit – badly neglecting this stuff 
Bagwork, elbow flow, spinal rocks and stretches, Sanchin.
Monday night – hard fitness warmup with 60-70 of each of the the usual. Then an exercise where half the group huddled down on the floor in a row and everyone else had to jump over them. Fast. Repeatedly. Best done at the beginning of class thats for sure. Jumping not my thing lol.
Then a variety of partner work with focus pads – boxing strike drills, adding in kicks into long sequences, spinning kicks (I completely cant do these), sabaki. Probably could have spent more time on this and a little slower, but it was pretty good.
Then 2 minutes freestyle hard rapid striking and the same kicking. Got blisters, all good.
Wednesday night senior gkr training -
Hard basics in long fighting stance, no comment. Then partner work running through some “self defence” stuff. Some of this was good. My lower grade partner was a young athletic lady more comfortable with the tournament scene but she worked hard with good committment. I especially liked some work with big swinging hooks, blocking in the direction of the swing and countering. This evolves nicely into an evade/ absorb/strike movement with the counter effortlessly following the circular path. The lapel grab stuff was very ho hum and we did a little bit of lock work, not well explained or performed.
The main problem is the lack of realism, and the continued focus on technique for gods sake. Sensei will say – “and you can follow this up with a kick to the groin/knee/eye strike/throat strike etc etc but we dont actually properly practise any of those so the whole things is pointless. And I want to see how it all works on a biiig guy, not little Helen. I’m reasonably sure I can defend myself against her lol. Aarrghgh.
Then we did some allover conditioning, so that was good.
Tuesday Teaching night -
1st class had 48 again, mainly kids, and its just an hour long so stuck to basics really, but trying to get some realism into the movements and some intensity. I have about a dozen mums and dads, some fairly er challenged, who are doing this as a family togetherness thing with their kids (which is entirely commendable). Lovely, well to do, middle class people all, violence is utterly foreign to them as far as I can tell, and they enjoy the classes so much. I love it that they love it but I feel so guilty… lol!
2nd class – 6 only. Strength warmup. A continuous line drill that became a five move combo against all the group, trying for some commitment and intensity. Speed/reaction work testing out some stuff I looked up on the net, which then moved into more self-defence apps – react, explode, escape kind of stuff. This needs a lot of work.
Then got them in pairs to make up bunkai/applications to parts of a couple of kata. This came from me questioning to myself about a particular turn in Taigyoku Nidan – beginners always do it wrong and shortcut it – why is it done the way we do it, what applications are there? (I found a nice step round behind and takedown).
Finished with quick, light conditioning.
Quote was from Joe Lewis – “Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit”.
Thursday night – silliest king fu movie I have ever seen, “Battle Wizards” – sort of MA meets Harry Potter. Needless to say I LMAO but anyone else best advised to avoid this one at all costs!
Friday – Lagoon walk, Intuflow to music
Sunday – gkr grading classes all afternoon, had 8 students going for low belts, all passed easily.
Monday night Ashihara – medium intensity warmup with strength stuff and stretches, hardest thing was chinups which I am still veryvery bad at. Mind you the 3×1 minute hopping on each leg isn’t easy either. Then some basics and simple combos (simple but still hard for me), incorporating some of the signature movements of the style, and done fast. I like that the whole group does the same things, no dumbing down for beginners. I struggle, but I learn.
Then partner work with focus pads – kicking drills mainly. Moving into some speed/reaction drills blocking and striking (my partner surprised – you’re good at these!) and then using that to move into takedowns with locks. Not much good at those, lots to learn there.
Morning – I had some spare time today so I went to train with the gkr recruitment team at the full time dojo.
Warmup with running, pushups and situps. Did some very basic basics. Then a nice drill blocking a hook with two handed shuto then countering, moving to blocking and striking simultaneously, moving to preemptive striking with a grab. Didn’t go far enough obviously, so I just improvised the rest. Could have spent a lot longer on this but we went on to workshop grade kata, quite successfully.
Senior Class – Warmup. Basics sigh. Then a horrible drill involving super-slow motion kicks to work on balance, dynamics and leg strength. Then a progressive group blocke strike drill. Finished with kata.
Afterwards I had an argument/discussion with a senior student, one of my former senseis, about why we do karate, effectiveness (or lack of it), and technique vs principles. None so blind….