Hard breathing.

It was a rough, hard session tonight and I'm partly to blame. I took the warm-ups and my obsession with burpees seems to have set the tone for the whole evening! Master Campbell took us through a rigorous examination of jumping techniques. This meant lots of repetitions with ahp chagi, ee dan ahp chagi, deah ahp chagi, dwi dollyo chagi. That's one set! I found it hard work and I was breathing hard so I concentrated on correct breath, deep breath and breathing throughout the technique. It's very tempting to suck in breath for jump kicks but this is unwise. Especially if you have a gruelling 25 minutes of consecutive jumping ahead. I tried to breathe as evenly as possible throughout and when I was really paggered (tired!) I controlled my breath making sure I got plenty of air in. I find there's no point in hiding one's tiredness by toughing it out and breathing in a shallow manner to look macho. This robs you of the oxygen for the next set of reps and makes you head for the floor, face first.

Made a cracking dollyo chagi, ee dan dwi chagi combination on 'Bob'. 

Sunny run and jumping kicks

I went for the lake run on Friday and as I was jogging round I tried spicing it up with some knee raises to prepare for a jumping front kick (ee dan ahp chagi). Little did I know that these exercises have a name! I was mooching around on YouTube and found this, it's pretty much what I was doing (although not as sharp) and called the Quick Step Drill :

And today I was playing with ee dan ahp chagi in the garden and was looking at distance covered. The distance I covered in a non-forced jump front kick was 2metres 25 (2 metres 50 with a walking prelude-this is more aggressive but not running). That's the distance covered over the ground (which I was going for), not in height. I was also trying to see whether getting the knee higher would make the kick higher, but my experiments seem inconclusive: I was kicking ~1metre 80 for both the normal knee raise prelude and the high knee prelude. Oh well. I think more importantly is the speed of this first action (the step up with the non-kicking leg).

Plus there has to be a fluid motion right through from the first step through the leg change and into the kick. It's ok to break it down for beginners but fairly soon they should practice the entire movement to avoid a: knee raise-pause-lurch upwards-kick off back leg. The momentum really helps. Sensei DD made a good point in that the first 'feint' should be convincing. It's pointless to make a cursory flash with the first foot raise. Maybe this is the important reason for raising that knee high in the first place. Who wants to kick higher than 1metre 80 anyway!?

Another interesting running drill to try from Jabari Pride, which may help out with kicking:

Forms and their kicks

I read recently an interesting point put forward by Vince Morris in a book 'Karate Kata Applications' (Vince Morris and Aidan Trimble, Ebury Press) how the traditional kata don't incorporate many kicks which are widely practiced in modern karate such as roundhouse kick, reverse roundhouse, axe kick or back kick.

I thought, for fun, I'd run through the Korean forms to document which kicks are included. As I've discussed previously these are based on Japanese and in turn Okinawan forms.

Kicks used in Tang Soo do Hyungs

Pyung Ahn Cho Dan: No kick.

Pyung Ahn Ee Dan: Yup chagi, ahp chagi. (Side kick, front kick)

Pyung Ahn Sam Dan: Pahkeso ahnero chagi (Outside to inside kick.)

Pyung Ahn Sa Dan: Yup chagi, ahp chagi. (Side kick, front kick, knee strike.)

Pyung Ahn O Dan: Pahkeso ahnero chagi. (Outside to inside kick.)

Bassai: Yup chagi. (Side kick.)

Naihanchi Cho Dan: No kick.

Naihanchi Ee Dan: No kick.

Naihanchi Sam Dan: No kick.

Sip Soo: Pahkeso ahnero chagi (depending on the style of Tang Soo Do)

Morris further states that developing new forms with other variant kicks may be beneficial. 

Front kick, ahp chagi, mae geri

I was enjoying another impromptu garden session the other day and I found myself practicing and studying front kick. My kempo teacher introduced me to an interesting (but probably not new) concept of following through front kick with shoulders 'cocked' in their original starting position so that upon landing you are ready to deliver a powerful punch. Below the mannequin kicks off the rear left leg keeping left shoulder back, lands forward onto left leg and can then rotate body round to deliver effectively a reverse punch (although it is off the front leg technically)

I measured the distance from my front toe to the effective target which for me was 80cm.



The second option I was playing with was the good old reverse front kick, powerfully delivered. Follow-up punches weren't as powerful as above but can be very rapid. Effective distance from front toe to target was 110cm.





Lastly I practiced a lunge kick with a hopping step: this involves a regular front kick from the back leg, as above with much power and forward momentum which 'hops' you forward into the target. As can be expected this thrusts you forward more than the previous two techniques and my measurement was 140cm.




See also Sparring Strategy.

Midday training

Well it's all well and good me blathering on about training but the only way to train is to get on and do it! And as Nakayama says in his solid training manual 'Dynamic Karate', "the ultimate goal of karate should be the attainment of a developed moral character built through hard and diligent training", I set to do some training.

I warmed up with some aerobic activity and then rotations (it's good to think of muscles like chewing gum: it's more mobile if you warm them up first) I practiced simple punching. My main aim was to initiate the punch from my waist rather than my shoulders. So as an exercise to see my punch driving straight out from my side rather than flicking the elbow out I stood next to the bookcase so my arm had nowhere to go!

Following this I did simple mae geri (or ahp chagi in Korean) keeping my shoulders as they were during the kick to facilitate a follow up punch with the weight of my body behind it.

I finished up with some dynamic tension techniques and some breathing.

Feel better now.

Gonna have my noodle soup soon....