Saturday, March 20, 2010

Training Blog

This is the fist blog entry! I plan to update it either before or after every class (...well, neary every class) to inform our students about what we're working on.

It has been hard for me to prepare a class plan in advance, since we never know when a new student pops in. I now have kind of a standard training plan for the very first karate class for complete beginners, and every time we have a new student in our class, I follow this training plan. I still try to make some variations to what we do, but I apologize if you feel like repeating the same beginners class over and over again...!

Some of the very basic topics/ key words we usually cover are:

Posture: image, joint alignment
Stance: front stance (Zenkutsu-dachi), back stance (Kokutsu-dachi), free-style with proper "Kamae"
Breathing: to aid whole body coordination, floor pressure
Body Dynamics: hip rotation, body weight shifting
Technique Execution: effective distance (Ma-ai), maximum focus/ delivery of force (Kime)

Then I will add some timing drills with a partner in the 2nd lesson or even in the 1st lesson if the students are up to the task and that we have some time left. Also I may introduce the first Kata "Heian-Shodan" then. Then at the next level, we'll work more on the basic blocking techniques, either in-place or while stepping forward/backword, to get used to the yellow belt level examination requirement.

I don't want to go on right here to explain each subject above, since it's your job to catch them in class and come up with your own understandings. But of course I welcome any questions! See you in class!

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