Living Life

Asai Sensei

A great interview with Asai Sensei!  Thanks to Andre Bertel for providing.

Interview

Training notes, 1 Jan 2010

In traditional karate training, after executing a technique, the student often holds the finishing position of that technique.  Since posture and body connection are key to maximum focus, holding that final position allows for good analysis of body connection.  However, in a real defensive situation, holding the position is impractical, rather, you need to return back to a guarded position as soon as possible.

So, incorporate into your training a snapping back to a guard position.  When you start this, your form will likely degrade, so you'll have to go back holding the technique at the end, but go back to returning to guard after you get your form back.

As well, do not forget ikken hissatsu, to kill with one attack.  Returning to a guarded position is critical for receiving follow on attacks, but don't let this method detract from the mental training that is gained by attempting to finish the confrontation with a single technique.  To train anything less will lead less than the most optimum results.

My workout plan

Over the last few months I've been working with various workout plans in an attempt to include all the facets of what I want to do.  I'm sure I'm not on my last iteration, but the current plan that I've been working for about 3 months is as follows:

Mornings - karate.  Usually a dynamic warmup with basics and then focus on specific kata or a few movements in a kata.  The focus area varies with what I think I need to work on for that session.

In the afternoon, I run a 4 day cycle of yoga, weights, yoga, and then (bike, swim or run) session.  

For the weights, I'm planning 3 sessions in sequence (3 of the above, 4-day cycle).  The 3d day of the weight training is a max lift of an olympic lift of choice; The first and second weight training days feed that 3d day.  The first is usually a skills day, breaking down the olympic lift into components and working those.  Sometimes I'll work outside those components as well if I feel I need to add an additional exercise.  The 2d day is a high pace aerobic style lift - I get most of these routines from Crossfit.

For the bike/swim/run session, I choose one of those events each time and alternate a long training session with an interval training session.  So, in the first cycle, I may do a long bike, and in the next cycle I'll do an interval swim workout.  If one of these falls on a weekend, I can stretch things out to do a good brick workout.

Now, the key here is this is just the plan.  I seldom make all of these workouts as there are various things that affect my recovery.  Sometimes I'll skip workouts or if I didn't make a morning karate session, I may substitute karate for the afternoon workout.  But over time, I should be getting a mix of long distance and shorter, high intensity training, as well as cover all the areas I want to train in.  I doubt this plan will lead to specialization in any one area, but should provide a well rounded program for lifelong health.  

Now I just have to figure out how to squeeze in walking the dogs.

Training tips

Sometimes a person can have a tendency to let the shoulders lag behind the hips.  You can detect this in the posture.  Have a friend, coach, sensei, or mirror help you - the spine must stay vertical to maximize the stomach and back muscles.

Bones in fingers and hands are small and subject to breaking more easily than larger bones.  In order to not hurt your hands overly much, you must have strong muscles in the hands to provide adequate support.  To build this strength, always train with tight fists.  If you train with loose fists, you build poor habits and increase your chance for injury. 

Keep training!

Enpi Training

Have been training on Enpi this week and today, a particular sequence of movements starting from a front stance with the rear hand out at a face height target.  Lift the rear knee as you move forward, then strike in kosa dachi stance (crossed leg stance).  Here the legs are compressed; drive backwards strongly and turn the body, but block low behind you.  Then turn your orientation and block low in front followed by a strong rising punch.  The rising punch starts towards the midsection but rises at the last moment to strike under the chin of the opponent.  While I trained the entire 4 movements, I concentrated much on these last two, trying to get a good snap in the hips. 

With the final block, the hips are forward from the previous block.  They turn back with the final down block then back forward for the punch.  This is supposed to be a fast snap with the hips and as much as I practice it, I always feel like I can go so much faster.

After working with this, I switched to a standard step back, down block, then punch.  As before, I concentrated on a quick hip snap.  I also broke this down into individual movements and felt like I was making good progress with hip power.

I learned some good lessons from this.  Posture is incredibly important for good hip rotation.  If I leaned forward any I felt very sluggish. 

I also needed to keep my hips tucked in tight for the body movement. 

I have been seeking a weakness in my left shoulder for a number of years and finally found it.  My positioning was just a little bit off, but that slight difference significantly affected my power generation.

This kata worked my legs hard; I probably need to do this kata more regularly for that purpose alone.

Heian Sandan notes - 6 Sep 09

I haven't fully appreciated this kata until recently.  When I started to get a good feel for the hip action, this kata truly became alive for me.

Practice this kata both directions, starting to the left, and doing a mirror image starting to the right.  There are some movements that are only expressed on one side of the body, and while in class you will be training this in the formal manner, in your self training, work it to both sides of the body.

The hip action in the first block to the left is fairly classical.  This can be seen as just a pushing sort of block.  However, to make this stronger, visualize this as a block strong enough to break your opponent's arm.  This will drive a much stronger hip action.  Get low and then extend out.

The second movement is challenging as you step up for the double block as your hip has a small area within which to create power.  The step helps.  This is a breaking move; it must be strong and sharp.  The same for the next double block.

The next three movements are the same, but to the other side.  Remember to drop your body down after the double blocks have raised you up.

Going down the floor, the reinforced block feels so good when done with the correct hip timing.  The hips must move sharply into position.  The step forward spearhand must have a strong rear leg and hip action.  The turn and strike provides many opportunities to let the hips fall out of line; keep them tucked under tight and practice this movement slowly over and over.  The final step and punch has similar hip and leg action as the spearhand.  Note that these four movements comprise changing of stances as you move all of which create different hip action to start the move.  You must practice this diligently, while at the same time practicing moving in only front stance like in Heian Shodan, in order to build the correct abductor and adductor muscles.  Practice going forward and back, slow and fast.  This is a perfect training tool for creating body movement necessary in emergency situations.

The turn and stand, like the turn and strike, must be done with the hips turned under strongly.  While the kata calls for doing this slowly, experiment with different applications which might need you to move quickly.

The knee lifts, elbow block, and strike can be very fun.  Don't let your hips loose and collapse on the knee lift.  This is a strong movement, like you are doing a knee strike on your opponent without the assistance of your hands.  Practice on a heavy back to get a good feel.  Keeping the hips tucked under will help generate a sharp hip twist for the elbow block.  This also generates a strong stomping action which is one of the bunkai for this movement.  An extremely sharp hip action back is required for the snapping fist strike.  Squeeze the legs hard when moving to the next knee lift; this does wonders for the power of the entire movement.

When you reach out on the slow, sweeping block, take that opportunity to tuck the hips in hard.  Notice a pattern here? :).  The stepping punch is fairly traditional, like the others.

The turn and elbow strike, then slide and elbow strike, are very challenging for me.  Again, the hips have little room to move and generating power is challenging.  In a real situation, if someone does have a hold of you from behind, he has a good opportunity to throw you to the ground.  Keep the side stance strong and create a strong fixture, if you will, by having a strong connection in the joints from the floor up to the shoulders.  Your strike will be more powerful and you'll stand a better chance of keeping your feet.

I really love this kata.  While the kata seems very basic to look at, it contains a great amount of tools for varied body movement which enables success in the critical factor of distancing.

Finish with Heian Shodan and dojo kun.

Kime and Heian Shodan

Can you devote an entire workout session to just one technique?  Of course you can, and the depth of learning can be huge!

Today I worked on the 5th movement of Heian Shodan; this is a 90 degree turn to the left with a down block.  After warmups and doing a few repetitions of the the kata, I focused on this movement doing successive trips down the floor of slow and then fast movements.  I practiced both sides, even though the kata only executes this movement going to the left.  I did two trips of slow for about every one trip of fast.  Each trip of slow movement I tried to go even slower, working on posture mostly, especially knees, hips, shoulders, and head.  This was also a good time to feel the right weight distribution on the different parts of the foot.

On the fast movements I tried to be as fast and as strong as I could.  This is kime, or focus, putting every ounce of who you are into the strike at the point of contact.  Every bit of your body and spirit needs to come out right at the moment of contact.  You must also be as relaxed as possible all the way up to contact as any tension will slow your movement.  To bring this to reality, if in a fight against someone with a knife, gun, bat, or multiple opponents, you don't have time to play around.  You have to be able to finish your opponent quickly because his friend is coming up behind you.  This is not a natural capability, but one that can only be developed over time.  The more you train with this mentality, the stronger you'll become.

About the 5th set or so, I noticed my kime was falling off.  Duh, I was getting tired :).  At this point I remembered lessons of my teachers that this was the time to allow my spirit to push my body even harder.  This one of the joys of training karate; when your resolution and willpower drive your body to greater capability than you previously conceived possible, you really feel like you're doing something worthwhile.

I finished this 50 minutes training session with two repetitions of the entire kata.  On the first one I felt like I had great kime and not only in just the downblock.  However, I felt sloppy and, my abdomen wasn't tired indicating I wasn't pulling my hips under strongly.  The second time I focused more on the hips, thinking of hitting and blocking with the hips; this felt much stronger and much more stable.

Finish with meditation and dojo kun.  Never forget the true aim of karate.

Kata workout - Heian Shodan

For today's workout, I chose Heian Shodan which is the first kata learned in Shotokan.  The kata is fairly simple as far as basic execution, only using mid level punching, down blocks, rising blocks, and knife hand blocks; there is one instance of an overhead strike following a break from a grab. There are only two stances used, front and back.  Still, with this lack of complexity, there still exists the challenging task of refining each technique to be a perfect as you can make it.

I started with a few repetitions of the kata, also working the inverse so that I can practice the turns in the opposite directions, then I broke it down to just the stepping.  Practicing each step multiple times, back and forth, with focus on correct movement and speed/power without telegraphing is a challenging endeavor.  After that I started putting it all back together with techniques, attempting to keep the same feeling with the stepping alone activity. 

A few things I learned:

Need to continue to work the expansion of the chest/contraction of the back.

Need to continue to stay low to not lose balance when turning fast.

My shoulders had a tendency to lift up when chambering for techniques.

Once the body was warmed up, keeping the hips under and moving quick was a real high.  If you can feel that power, you feel like you're really accomplishing something.

This took 45 minutes and was a slight stressor on aerobic conditioning.  Even though this training was technically focused, more intensity will help make this even more of a workout.

Tai Sabaki training

Tai Sabaki is a term used to express whole body movement. In martial arts, this movement is done with the aim of creating an advantage in combat.  Almost always, you need to consider achieving this advantage by moving a shorter distance than your opponent.  Even if you are as fast as your opponent, if your reaction starts with initiation of his action, you're always going to lag behind.  If you assume that you must be set in order to deliver an attack or block with power (ikken hisatsu), then you must complete your movement by the time you strike.

Given this, there are two main concerns in training Tai Sabaki.  One is the strategic choice of where you are going to move to.  The other is quick and efficient body movement to execute with the right timing.

In training, using a partner or your imagination, practice moving at angles.  Forward and rear angles can set up different situations that you can use to your advantage.  Moving straight to the rear should also be practiced, but realize distancing is critical when doing so.

To practice the body movements, break down your stepping into minute steps and train the muscle action at each point.  Always start with the hips low and tucked under, the lower back must be straight.  If there is any variance in posture, your hips will leave your shoulders behind which will make you weak and expose your face.  First, practice bringing your feet together in a forward or back movement.  Stop there and analyze your posture, hips and back especially.  Then continue your movement keeping the correct posture.  Go slowly, painfully slowly, and do this alot.  A hundred repetitions might be a good start.

The next step is to work with speed.  Instead of just bringing the feet together, jerk them together by squeezing the inner thighs.  Eventually, this will need to be blindingly fast and only repetive actions will build the muscle power needed for this.  Don't lose your posture.  Do the same for the second half of the movement.

When you are confident, then you can put the movement together as one, and then add your strike, kick, block, etc.  At this point, I guarantee you will likely experience a degradation in posture.  When you detect this, slow down, re-acclimate your body to keep that posture, then pick up speed again.  There's no problem of going right back to the beginning exercise.  I can't stress how important that posture is.  If your shoulders lag just a little behind your hips, that's when you'll get hit.  Your face will be further forward and vulnerable.  Your torso muscles will not be in a position so that they can be tightened to receive a hit.  With the back even just a little out of line, you are easily thrown to the ground which is a devastating situation if you are facing multiple opponents. 

Good luck training!

Details, details, details

I am continually reminded that while there are a myriad of details to work on when executing a karate technique, there are a few details that must never be forgotten.  Remembering to focus on the right details is a skill that can be applied to just about any endeavor.

One of significant details in karate is hip connection.  A machine makes the most efficient and effective use of power by moving its biggest gear first.  The joints in the human body act similar to gears (points that create or transfer movement) and the hip would arguably be the largest of these.  If you want to use the entire body's movement to execute a punch, then moving the hips first, followed by back, shoulders, elbow, and wrist, is the most efficient and powerful way to create this.  There's no secret to this as you can see this in any sport that uses rotation of the body.

The secret (not really) is in how you train this.  If your mind is not consistently focusing on moving the hips first and connecting the hips through the back to the shoulders (tucking the hips under provides this connection) then the punch is not as strong as it could be.  In my training, I often put too much attention on the details of the arm, and have to constantly remind myself that the power of the movement starts with the hip.  When I place my mind on my hips, I find that everything else tends to follow fairly well.