Just a short post on this one – we’ve got a grading coming up this weekend, and I’ll be trying for mine. Since I had to start fresh with my current school back in 2007 it’s still early days, and this time I’ll be going for 7th kyu. I’m hoping that if I train hard for the next six months, I’ll possibly be able to squeeze in another grading by the end of the year, which will bring me to 6th kyu, which is the grade I worked myself to in my previous style of karate.

Not that I mind about starting afresh or the time frames, but I’m keen to work hard this year and push myself to progress through the formative stages of the syllabus with solid gradings and quality karate; if I can use my goal of 6-monthly gradings at this early stage in the style to push myself in this direction, I’m confident I can continue to work hard through future grades regardless of how long it takes to progress, including where the going gets considerably tougher the further down you go towards Shodan, and from there to progress to Dan rankings (or at least a Dan ranking of some sort!!!).

Mind, we’re talking long term stuff here – I’m not putting a set goal for when I want to achieve something as lofty as my shodan, I’m just saying that in the grand scheme of things, my goal is to one day achieve at least shodan, and from there continue to train as hard and progress as far as my body allows and see where I go. I have no idea how many years it will take to get there, but I think to do so would be to loose sight of the journey that you go through when moving through the kyu ranks, as it would be foolish to ignore the importance of what you learn in your kyu grades and expect to automatically exude awesomeness once you reach Shodan — as one of the black belts I trained with at the seminar I attended recently pointed out, a black belt is simply an advanced white belt, and it’s by no means the end of your learning as a martial artist. I just like imagining at how much I’ll have improved by that point in the hopes that I can start to truly grasp and become proficient at my style of karate.

So, to move away from my crazy ramblings off the immediate challenge, grading is happening this weekend, and I intend to go in there and work as hard as I can to try and progress to my next ranking. We’ll see how I go!

BTW, if you’re curious what I mean when I talk about kyu grades, dan grades or what shodan is, Wikipedia have some handy articles on kyu rankings, dan rankings and one specifically on the shodan ranking.

Bloginated Thursday, 30th July 2009 / Karate
Tag-isms: grading

Last night’s training went really well – by the time I was finished the top of my gi was soaked with sweat, and whenever that happens, I always figure it’s been a good session 🙂

With grading coming up this weekend, there was a lot of emphasis on getting core techniques polished in preparation for it, as well as kata. Despite the fact I did two stupid things (jammed my thumbnail into the side of my nose accidentally while doing a wrist-grab counter, which cut it and had it start bleeding; and knocked one of my fingers on my right hand and caused it to start swelling up [nothing an ice pack when I got home couldn’t fix!]), it was a really good, productive session. The best part was when we were working on kata towards the end of class – the first two times I did it I felt I was doing a bit of a rubbish job, so with the next few times we did it, I deliberately slowed down with increased focus, and felt extremely satisfied at the end of it. I’ve corrected my bad shuto habit where I would typically raise my striking/blocking (When is a block a block? When is a block a strike? Think about it…) arm too high, but I’m still falling into the trap of doing my age-uke too high and wasting the principle that demands economy of motion in perfecting your skills as a martial artist. Despite the fact I’ve read up on the concept in various forms over the years and know better 😛

So yeah, still plenty to do, but it was a good, solid training session 😀

Bloginated Thursday, 30th July 2009 / Karate
Tag-isms: Karate | kata | Technique

So, let’s get it out of the way for the nth time – I’m a bit nerdy, right? Anyway, part of my nerdy habits is that I like watching anime, but I’m picky in that I only like watching it in Japanese with subtitles (mind, I extend that to all foreign film/music – I’d rather watch/listen to it in its original language with subtitles than something dubbed into my native tongue). So, Jyastin-kun and I were heading to karate last week and we were chatting about stuff, and I came up with this awesome analogy, that kata is like watching subtitled anime – if you take it all at first glance and verbatim, you only get one aspect of the whole story, but as soon as you begin to understand it and read more into it, you get a greater understanding of it.

The part of the conversation this came from was how we were talking about how knowing a smattering of written and spoken Japanese reveals all the inadequacies of a simple, literal (or localised) translation from one language to another gives. In the English language compared to Japanese, the system of honorifics does not exist to such an extent, and the gravity of different accents, levels of formalities and other specific eccentricities unique to the Japanese language makes it difficult to bring all this across in a series of subtitles. However, as soon as you start to learn some of the language and cultural norms, your viewing of the material changes – you understand the various levels of honorifics and how they establish hierarchy within the context of the story. Awkwardly-translated phrases (not awkward through any fault of the translator, but awkward through the act of transliteration) somehow make much more sense when you understand the language behind it, and in-jokes and cultural norms suddenly open your eyes to a much deeper experience of the story at hand. Then, with all this in hand, when you watch something you can take the subtitles as your guide, but you’re free to interpret the deeper or more subtle meanings behind the language or content your own way, and in turn, gain a deeper understanding into what’s happening on-screen.

Similarly, when you start learning a kata, you start by following the movements verbatim. As your knowledge of the kata and what the movements signify increase, you gain a deeper understanding of the routine actions represent. Once you have developed your base understanding and precepts behind the actions, you begin to make the kata your own, and instead of it simply be a series of pre-assigned movements, it becomes an involved exploration and an expression wholly personal to you, the individual.

I’m hoping the above is reasonably coherent… and in looking over this post, it’s not just subtitled anime that this can be applied to – movies based on books are another example (i.e. you’ve read the book, then seen the movie), exploring other literary works with an understanding of the context of its creation or expression by the author (whether it be music, film or literature), and so on. I just chose subtitled anime because it came up in discussion and proved both obscure and apt in the grand scheme of things 😀

Bloginated Monday, 27th July 2009 / Anime, Karate, Nerdisms
Tag-isms: Japanese language | kata

The weekend’s seminar is catching up with me I think! It’s quite interesting, as I didn’t think I went full-on enough to be fighting sore muscles, bumps, bruises and stuff. I’ve got some choice bruises on my lower/upper arms, raw elbows, sore chest muscles and, something which is a first for me, the muscles around my neck and throat are a bit sore from all the chokes and holds I’ve been put in. Not having done much in the way of grabs/chokes before this is all rather new to me. It’s certainly not bothering me though.

Oh, the other interesting/bemusing thing is that all the choking work’s given me some crazy shaver-burn on my neck – the skin was all sensitive after shaving Sunday morning before training, and all the groundwork saw it looking a bit red and raw afterward!

My wrists have also been a bit cranky because of all the joint manipulation as well – might have to look into ways to increase their flexibility when they’re turned in on themselves if it’s possible, as I’d like to be able to take a bit more stress on the joint before having to tap out.

So yeah, just some random musings on my current state 🙂 Certainly not a grumble though – the aching muscles are a sign that I still managed to get a physical workout over the seminars, which is what I wanted to achieve! 😀

Bloginated Tuesday, 14th July 2009 / Karate
Tag-isms: Karate | muscles | training

It’s a bit belated, but oh well – better late than never!

Last week’s training went well – put in as much effort as I could on the night and really felt good afterwards. I love it when you have a training session, your gi ends up getting soaked through all the persperation, you feel knackered, but you come out of class on this crazy natural high. Gotta love it 🙂

Anywho, the theme of last week’s session was two-person drills – one blocks, one attacks, swap arms, then swap sides. I was a bit unco at first (I get the feeling this is a personal feature rather than something I’ll eventually get over :P), but eventually I got into the rhythm of things and it went well. The cool thing is that the session ended up being a good way to start working on conditioning the arms, in particular the forearms. I remember in the school I used to train at before my current one that Jyastin-kun and I used to go full-on with blocking and striking drills, and it used to be a regular thing going to work the next day sporting bruises all over my arms. I must have gotten out of practice though, as I was struggling towards the end of it to put in the max effort on each block knowing what was coming 🙂 It’s taken my nearly a week, but I’ve finally come out in a weak bruise on my right forearm, so there wasn’t even much to show for the pain 😛 Ah well, gotta toughen up and start working on this – my forearms used to be able to take much more punishment than this, so hopefully Sensei will start doing this regularly.

Aside from the frills, we also did kata – I’ve asked Sensei to start being very particular with my form so I can work on the small details to really round it out – I let my age-uke slip a little higher than usual (a bit of a goju habit I think), so I’ll be paying attention to that, and my stances as there’s bound to be a grading coming up, and I’m keen to push myself hard to try and make it, and do a really good job at it. I’d feel disappointed if I went to a grading but only kinda slipped through with an average record, I want to push to really achieve a strong grading. Otherwise I don’t really think there’s much point at all.

Bloginated Monday, 1st June 2009 / Karate
Tag-isms: Conditioning | kata | training