Just 5 days to go!

Just five days to go!

You may have noticed that I have changed the countdown in the sidebar to days rather than weeks. The grading is on Sunday and starts at 10.00am for the warm up. Since there are so many of us grading this time (about 19) we have been told to expect the grading to last until around 6.30pm with the presentations at 7.00. It will be a long, long day!

My aims this week are mainly to avoid further injuries and to just keep walking through the techniques to keep everything fresh in my mind. We had a hard session last night which focused on the first half of the syllabus which is mainly Kihon and kata (with bunkai). My leg held out well with the kicking so I'm pretty sure it's going to be okay for the grading - phew!

On Wednesday we will be going through the second half of the syllabus which is mainly partner work. I expect this will be an equally hard session but after that I am resting up until the grading. I think I am as prepared as I'm going to be now, I'm comfortable with the syllabus and know what to expect on grading day. There doesn't seem any point in pushing myself to the limits in the last few days, I don't think it will achieve anything.

I probably won't post again now until after the grading so hopefully I'll have good news for you....

Progress report on my leg....

Less than 2 weeks now to black belt grading! My injured leg had its first real test last night and held up pretty well. We went through all our combination techniques including the ones with the dreaded jump kicks that usually set my leg off again. These felt okay on the whole and I just kept stretching my quads out between each set.

We then went through our kata and bunkai. After about 20 minutes of practising these on our own, those of us that are grading had to demonstrate all our kata and bunkai to the class as if it were a the real thing. I felt relieved when Sensei said that it had all gone well and would have been worthy of a pass in the grading (relief!).

My leg was feeling fine at this point and I was still stopping to stretch it regularly. At the end of the class we decided to have some races which involved crawling or running over large crash mats - good fun but ouch! Not so good for my leg.....it was aching like mad by the time I got home and stretching had become painful again (arrrgghh!!!). What was I thinking joining in with that race?

So it was back on with the heat pad at home and a massage on my leg by my husband - he has a vested interest in getting me fit for the grading since I am his grading partner! The tiger balm that I had ordered a week ago from a well known Internet shop (A--z-n) had still not arrived, not even been dispatched yet - just when I needed it. Today I decided to buy it the old fashioned way by going to a shop - it worked, they had it and now my leg stinks of Tiger balm! Stretching is still a little tender today but not as bad as last night.

I have another class tonight but I think I'll pass on the games this time if we have any! 

Fear of failure or fear of success...

I did a pre-dan grading course on Saturday to find out if I'm definitely ready for this black belt grading on June 12th. I have written my main report about this on my other blog: Pre-dan grading course - a dose of reality! but there are a few extra things that came out of it that I want to discuss here.

What do I fear most failure or success?

I don't actually fear failure. If I fail and I can see good reason for it then I could accept that with good grace. In fact I would be one of the first people to feel disgruntled if people were passing  when they didn't deserve it as this diminishes the success of those that do deserve to pass. I don't want to fail obviously but I don't fear what failure would do to me - as long as I could see it was fair. I would just train for longer and try again - I wouldn't quit.

What about success? We all want success in our black belt grading but does it always sit comfortably? People often feel unworthy of their black belt, worried about the expectations that may be placed on them or worried that they may not live up to people's expectations of a 'black belt'. I'm not particularly worried that I may feel like this. If I feel that I've really earned a black belt then I hope I will feel proud to wear it.

But there lies the rub....What I really fear is that success may feel like failure; that the experience of grading will be so bruising emotionally that I won't be able to enjoy my success. I want my grading to feel like a positive experience - Physically shattering, yes! Mentally draining, yes! But emotionally battering, no! I don't want my black belt to be a constant reminder of a negative experience. Why should I fear this? Well because I know it has happened to someone close to me. Someone who never really came to terms with his black belt because of the experience gone through to obtain it and he no longer practices that martial art. Don't get me wrong, he is a mentally strong and resilient person and he was physically capable of performing the art but those emotions just creep up on you in unexpected ways and can leave scars that last for years. I don't want my karate to be tainted in this way.

Forewarned is forearmed! My pre-dan grading course has made me realise that I am susceptible to emotional pressure - that I can become negative and stressed way too easily. I need to deal with now. I need to change my perception of the grading - knock it off its grand pedestal and realise it's just another grading, another step of the journey completed. I need to get my head in the right place and go into the grading with a positive spirit and a realistic expectation of my ability. A pass, whatever the mark will be a worthy pass and should feel like success.

What do you fear most success or failure?

Getting to grips with goshin waza

At class last night we got the chance to work on our goshin waza  (self-defence techniques). I had them more or less worked out in my head. Some of them were ones I'd learnt many months ago and some were fairly new. However, it doesn't matter how well you work things out in your head you really don't know what you can make work until you try it out in practice!

What always amazes me with many of these goshin waza techniques is how fairly subtle changes in the techniques lead to huge improvements in their effectiveness. A small shift in weight distribution, re-positioning of the hands, stepping closer to the opponent etc can suddenly change a weak technique into a strong technique. Many of the self-defence techniques that we do tend to have an overlap with some jujitsu techniques. Luckily for me my training partner (who happens to be my husband) is also a black belt in jujitsu. He is able to talk me through all the little nuances that make a big difference to effectiveness. This extra tuition that I can get from my husband as well as my instructor means that my performance at goshin waza tends to be one of my strong points in karate.

At the end of the lesson we got to demonstrate all our techniques to the class. Being on show like this is always slightly nerve racking but it's good practice for the grading - we'll definitely be on show then! I think the demonstration went okay (apart from the belt and gi problems) though my escapes from lapel grabs still need a bit more work.

Another step closer to shodan.....need to focus on bunkai next.

Training review - flowing kata!

I've managed to get back to some useful training this week. There has been no karate classes at all this week due to the Easter break (and my instructor enjoying a break in Tuscany) so it has seemed even more important to do some training at home.

My main focus this week has been kata. I have three kata to perform in my grading- Bassai Dai, Seienshin and Annanku, together with some bunkai. Kata has never been my strong point, at least not from an aesthetic point of view! However I do feel I've made some significant strides forward in the last few weeks. This week I've been following Felicia's advice about practising kata as a flow drill and I think it is paying off. Instead of just doing the kata with full power and with correct timing you practice it softly and flowingly at a faster speed than normal. You have to pay attention to correct stances, footwork, hand positions etc, so the kata is not performed sloppily but just without the power and changes in timing.

Doing the kata in this way makes it feel a bit more meditational - eventually you stop thinking about the moves and they just flow out of you. It is also less exhausting to do the kata softly and so it is possible to repeat the kata several times in succession. Today I did all three kata 6 times each straight after each other. That would have been very difficult to do if I had done the katas with full power! So doing it this way has given me more practice. However, it is still important to do the kata with power and timing as well so that I don't forget so I've made sure that the last repetition is done in this way.

I've also been working on basic kihon techniques - punching and kicking combinations. The punching combinations I'm pretty confident about now but some of my kicks still leave a lot to be desired! Why are back kick and side kick so difficult? I still have trouble with forming the correct foot shape and getting sufficient height (and we're only talking chudan height here). Yeah I know - it's just practice!

I've also been finalising my goshin waza  (self-defence techniques) with my husband who will be my grading partner. I've decided on demonstrating three defences to attacks from behind (double wrist grab, over-arm bear hug and arm bar to throat), three defences to lapel grabs and three defences to kicks to the head on the ground. My husband doesn't let me get away with anything and grabs me really tight. He makes me really work hard to get the techniques to work, so I'm hopeful of putting on a good performance of these in the grading.

I feel a lot less stressed about the grading now and I'm starting to feel on top of things....with only 7 weeks to go that's a good sign!

Training progress - getting a little overwhelmed!

The balance of my training has changed a lot over the last two weeks. Most of my training has been done in my usual karate classes, plus a couple of pretty demanding weekend courses. I have also returned to kobudo training after missing a few weeks. With all the muscle soreness I have experienced over the last 2 weeks I decided not to do any additional training at home.

My legs now finally feel okay and I'm starting to feel that I can pick up the pace again. I have still not returned to the push up challenge which I stopped about 4 weeks ago because I was struggling with it and generally wondered if I was over training a little. I have not yet reached my target of 50 push ups, the maximum I got to was 35. I'm still considering whether to pick up this challenge again and try to reach my target. The problem is there are so many other things I need to concentrate on that are more directly relevant to the karate training so I may leave it for a while and pick it up again after I have got my black belt.

I'm not too worried that I'm not doing any fitness training at home because sensei has us doing a fair bit in the classes. Most classes we have 2 or 3 rounds of push ups, sit ups, burpees, star jumps, straight leg raising etc, as well as some stretching exercises so I'm still doing that kind of stuff.

I have finally settled on my 9 ippon kumite techniques. Some of the finishing moves may need a bit of tweaking but essentially I just need to keep drilling them (both physically and mentally). I now need to settle on my 9 goshin waza (self defence) techniques. We get to choose what type of attacks we want to receive and then have to demonstrate 3 different defences against each of them. I think I'm going to choose attacks from behind (bilateral rear wrist grab, rear bear hug and rear head lock); 3 different types of wrist grab from the front and 3 escapes from lapel grabs.

I also need to work on my kata. I attended a kata course a couple of weeks back and received a lot of feedback about my kata performance so I now need to practice them incorporating the information given. 

The amount of stuff I need to be working on seems enormous and overwhelming at times but then again I can only do one thing at a time- and there's still 10 weeks to go!

Slowing down, speeding up and Iain Abernethy seminar....

I decided to slow down a bit this week. I don't think I've been giving myself enough time to recover between sessions.

Over the last few weeks the schedule has been:



Monday 1.5 hour workout at home in the morning followed by 2.5 hours of karate classes in the evening,
Tuesday push-up challenge,
Wednesday 1.5 hour karate class,
Thursday push up challenge,
Friday 1.5 hour workout at home,
Saturday push up challenge and
Sunday 1.5 hour kobudo class.

So, not a lot of time for recovery between sessions! My muscles have been aching and I've been more stiff than usual following a session so I think a slow down was definitely needed.

This week I've laid off the push up challenge. I repeated week 5 last week and still failed to achieve 45 consecutive push ups in the exhaustion test. I decided that rather than repeat week 5 again I would take a week out and then try the exhaustion test again to see where I'm at.

I've still managed to fit in my two long home training sessions but I've concentrated very much on karate rather than general fitness. I had been determined to pin down my ippon kumite techniques this week but alas time ran out on me. This will definitely be my job next week...

Sensei was clearly not aware that I was trying to rest up a bit this week and decided to have a fitness binge with us on Wednesday. This consisted of push ups, sit ups, squats, burpees, running around....and that was just the warm up. We then moved onto pad work and after doing a few minutes of punching we were straight into doing the following sequence: 10 kicks with each leg of - front kick, roundhouse kick, back kick, side kick, spinning hook kick and jump kick! Just when we thought it was all over Sensei shouts 20 push ups! Followed by a 1 minute plank, followed by standing in shikko dachi (horse stance) for 1 minute. Get a drink! Then immediately into kata with bunkai demonstration. After doing 3 different kata : Get your sparring mitts on! Two rounds of sparring was then followed by some stretching. There was definitely some soaking wet gis after that session!

Last Sunday I attended a seminar with Iain Abernethy. This is the second seminar I've attended with him and it is always a great experience. I can't believe how fast that guy can execute self-defence techniques - you just wouldn't stand a chance against him! Anyway we focused on the bunkai from pinan nidan (there's always more to that kata than meets the eye) and then looked at bunkai from Bassai Dai. This was especially useful for me as Bassai Dai is one of my kata for shodan grading. Iain is such an easy, approachable guy with lots of amusing anecdotes to tell in between teaching us. Apparently he was impressed with our standard of kata which he said made it easier for him to teach us bunkai. Nice to know I can do something right!

The photo above shows left to right: Steve Hegarty (my instructor), Iain Abernethy and me!

Training review and update

Where is the time going? When I started this fitness program and my black belt training I had 24 weeks to go - that's nearly 6 months, now I only have 14 weeks left and that doesn't seem very long at all. So much to do, so little time to do it!

One of the problems I'm facing is proportioning my time between general fitness training and specific karate training, particularly the stuff on the black belt syllabus. Over the last couple of weeks I've moved from doing mainly fitness training to doing mainly karate training. This is because there is so much to cover and I need to make quite a lot of progress in certain areas, particularly in some of the kihon (basics) which are very detailed and prescriptive.

A kick can't just be any old kick it has to be a super high-quality 'Marks & Spencer' style kick. Well some of my kicks are only 'Tesco' quality at the moment (some may even be 'Budgens'). No disrespect meant to these supermarkets - they operate in different customer markets but you get my drift. 


So how do you get from Budgens to Marks & Spencer with your kicks? Well it's just a case of checking your technique is correct and then practice, practice, practice. So this is what I have been doing. Lots.

However, spending much of my home training time practising basic kihon has meant that I don't have a lot of time to follow my general fitness program so I have had to prioritise and double up where possible. So instead of shadow boxing for endurance training I now go through all 12 of my kihon combinations several times. Believe me, when you are putting all your power and effort into performing these you really work up a sweat and get your heart going!

I am still doing squat training, balance training and the push up challenge on a regular basis and I try to do the flexibility exercises at least twice a week. The push up challenge has actually become the most constant exercise in my week. I have been following the program with almost religious zeal and I'm making progress. On Saturday (the end of week 5) I managed 120 push ups divided into 8 sets (with 30 done in the last set). However, I didn't do so well with the exhaustion set - I could only get to 35 whereas I needed to get to 45 to move onto the next week of the program. So I am repeating week 5 again this week. But hey, 120 push ups in 15 minutes (with short breaks between sets)? No way I could have done that a few weeks ago!

So, where to go now? I think I will be reviewing my training aims and re-planning my program a bit to reflect the need to spend more time practising specific karate techniques. I need to be thinking about by ippon kumite techniques (1 step sparring) and self defence techniques as well as continuing to practice kata and kihon. However, strength, fitness and flexibility are also important so I still need to fit this in somewhere.....

Keep you posted. Happy training!

Push Ups are mental!

I've just completed week 3 of the push up challenge and I've decided that push ups are mental! By mental I mean psychological. By psychological I mean that your mind controls how many you can do - or appears to...

Take yesterdays effort for instance: The first set required me to do 11 push ups. I did this but could barely have pushed a 12th out. The second set required 13 push ups. I did this and easily pushed out the 12th but could not have pushed out 14. The third and fourth sets only required 9 push ups each. I could not have pushed out more than 9 for each - my arms were literally trembling! Then for the 5th set I had to push up until I maxed out but had to do a minimum of 13. I set the target at 18 because I had achieved 16 the last time and wanted to feel I was making progress. I did 18 easily but could not have pushed out a 19th!

What's going on? It's as if my mind tells my body what it is capable of doing for each set of push ups and enables me to access the required physical resources to achieve the task but no more. It definitely feels like a case of mind over matter. My husband has experienced the same phenomenon with his push up challenge.

Is this a working example of the unification of mind, spirit and body?

I decided to apply the principle to my training this morning. Instead of doing shadow sparring I set myself the task of going through all my punching combinations. We have 6 different combinations but the format is similar for each, consisting of : start in yoi, step into zenkutsu dachi with kamae, punch 1, punch 2, kamae, step back into yoi and then repeat on the other side. I decided to set myself the target of doing each combination 10 times on each side, making a total of 120 punch combinations. I thought this would test out my endurance, particularly as I intended to do every combination with maximum vigour!

I decided that a stepped approach similar to the push up challenge was required, so I did each of the six combinations in turn, 10 times on each side and then had 60 seconds rest before starting the next combination. The whole thing took less than 15 minutes and I didn't even collapse in a heap at the end of it!

It was as if once I had set the target and a schedule for achieving it, my mind just instructed my body to get on with it and released the necessary physical resources to do it.

I think I'm learning a lot more about myself from this push up challenge than just how to do push ups.....

Some ups and downs this week.....

The last two weeks training has gone a bit slower than planned! Unfortunately some of my training has been thwarted by illness (heavy cold) and injury (pulled deltoid muscle). Typically, the days I was unable to train because of illness or injury were the days I had the time to do it!

Last week I managed to fit in the program twice by doing different bits on different days as I felt up to it but this week I didn't do anything significant until today. I managed to get off work early so came home and spent an hour in the gym doing some fitness and weights training and some karate stuff. I feel I've made up a little bit for not training on Monday (my day off) but my left shoulder was so sore I thought I'd better rest it.

Strangely this did not stop me doing a double karate class on Monday evening (I'd have to be on my death bed to miss that). Unfortunately, Sensei had decided to dedicate the whole week to kihon training, mainly punching - which was good but very hard on my poor shoulder which was really throbbing by the end of class! We did some stretching at the end and Sensei showed my partner how to stretch out my shoulder.

Next morning I woke up expecting my shoulder to be really sore but to my amazement it felt fine. I don't know if it was the stretching or the kihon or something else but it's not bothered me much since.

The part of my training that I have consistently managed to maintain this last fortnight is the Push Up Challenge (see my left side bar for results). I am now on week 3 and have been following the program to the letter. My husband has joined me in the challenge so we can motivate each other to keep going. It is a hard challenge but I'm slowly making progress. At the end of last week (week 2) I maxed out with 16 push ups. I know this doesn't sound many but that only represents the last set of push ups out of 5 sets. You do a prescribed number of push ups for the first 4 sets with a minute rest between, then you do as many as you can in the last set - that's the number you record. However, if you add the 5 sets together I did 61 push ups - which sounds more respectable!

I have another day off tomorrow so I am hoping that now I am free of illness and injury I will be able to get up to speed with program again and have a good long session of solo training.

Happy training....

Week 5 - progress report

This is the beginning of the fifth week of my pre shodan training programme - just 18 more to go, eek, scary!
So, how is it going?

Endurance and speed training: I have focused pre-dominantly on shadow sparring and various kicking drills for my endurance training. I started to get on better with the shadow sparring once I had developed a set of sparring combinations to work on. This way I can get some combinations really drilled into my head whilst working on my stamina - kill two birds with one stone I say! The kicking drills do the same thing - they enable me to improve my kicking techniques and leg strength whilst getting my heart rate up at the same time. I do some of the shadow sparring hitting the air and some hitting the bag. I haven't managed to do as many endurance workouts as I wanted, just one or two sessions a week (I'd aimed for 3) but time is limited. However I'm going to aim for 2 sessions this week. This morning I did 15 minutes solid of shadow sparring so I was pretty pleased with that.

I know a lot of martial artists like to go running as a way of improving cardio fitness and stamina. In fact, I know some have to do a timed running test as part of their black belt grading. But does running build the right sort of endurance for martial arts? Martial arts usually requires short bursts of intense activity, particularly for sparring. A kata performance can be very energetic but it only last for a couple of minutes at most. I could understand sprint training as a good form of endurance training for martial arts, but jogging a few miles? I've never been a runner so I accept that I could be completely wrong on this issue - what's your view?

Weights and conditioning: I'm not aiming for big bulging muscles here, just improved tone and strength. I read recently on Fitness Black Book, that to improve muscle size you need to exercise the muscle to failure - the number of reps or weight used is irrelevant, it's the effort that counts. If you don't want your muscles to get overly large but just stronger and toned then don't exercise the muscle to failure. This presents me with a dilemma! I don't particularly want big muscles (not that women's muscles get that big anyway) but the hundred push-up challenge that I'm doing requires me, in the last set of reps, to do push  ups until I 'max out', i.e. exercise to failure. Not wanting to do the challenge half hearted I'm 'maxing out' on the push ups but I'm watching those muscles don't get too big!

Flexibility and balance training: I love doing the flexibility training. I find doing the long, slow stretches very relaxing - a good counter balance to the endurance and weights training. I tend to do the stretching exercises on the in between days (i.e the days I'm not doing the other stuff). I generally do the balance exercises first and maybe a bit of kata and then spend half an hour stretching. I've even tried adding 5 or 10 minutes of meditation onto the end of it when I'm feeling at my most relaxed. I'm really working on the hips at present. My instructor told me that my shiko dachi (horse stance) is not low enough when I'm doing seienchin kata so I think being able to open up my hips more will help with this.

I'm also working on various karate techniques, mainly basic kihon stuff but I'll talk about the benefits of doing that in a later post.

Fitness training - how did it go?

The first week of my training programme is over so how did I do? Well, not too bad! I managed to do the endurance, balance and weight training twice and the flexibility training three times. I also did a bit of kata training and some bunkai practice with my husband. This was on top of 5 and a half hours of martial arts classes so all in all I was quite pleased with the weeks training.

That's what I did but HOW did it go? The endurance training consisted mainly of shadow boxing and kicking drills. I wanted it to be context based i.e endurance training that is directly relevant to karate and enables me to get a sweat on as well as practice karate moves. I haven't really done much shadow boxing before and found the endurance part of it wasn't too much of a problem - I managed two rounds of 5 minutes each in a session which wasn't too bad considering I haven't done it before. The problem I had was thinking up different sparring combinations to do while I was bouncing around. Some of the combinations got a bit bizarre in the end!

With the weights exercises I found that I could actually do more reps than I had set out to do so I decided to double them. Or maybe I should increase the weight I am lifting and keep the reps the same? What's better for improving arm strength for punching - heavier weights or more reps? (I'm currently using 3Kg weights).

The stretching exercises I've been leaving until last and I've found these really relaxing and beneficial. I'm concentrating on the areas where I am most inflexible - the hips, back and legs - especially hamstrings. Stiffness in these areas affects the quality of my kicking so I'm determined to improve it. The stretches are a mix of static and dynamic exercises. I'm mainly working on the principle that dynamic flexibility is more important than good static flexibility in martial arts - what do you think about that?

This week I'm repeating the same exercise program but I've also decided to focus on a different kick, punch and kata each week. So this week I will be looking at the hook kick, maeken zuki (leading hand punch) and the kata seienchin. I've also realised that I need to make my training aims a bit more objective with some measurable targets, so I'll be thinking about exactly what I want those to be this week as well.

I'll keep you posted.......any tips, advice about fitness training will be welcomed. I'm no expert on this so I'm very open to suggestion