the corona chronicles – day 1

Yesterday the government advised to avoid “all unnecessary travel” and consequently i suspended all training. i promised everybody that i would be posting ideas for training at home,  so i thought i’d start straight away. “no time like the present” thing.

i filmed a short sequence and checked the result. i wasn’t happy at all. i can be quite critical, but frankly, i haven’t been training enough myself. so that was short-lived, at least for now, but not entirely useless. just filming myself for a few minutes and watching the result gave me a few things i want to improve. after all, the japanese word for training is “keiko” (稽古) which means something like “reflect on the wisdom of previous generations”, so reflection and examination should be integral to karate training.

and there we have it – your first training tip: film yourself and then examine the result. you will be able to see what i see when you train in the dojo. you will notice some of the things we work on (e.g. are you striking to the correct target? is your hikite tight? etc.). then it’s just a matter of: film, examine, improve, repeat.

As a possible exercise i can suggest the following:

standing in shizentai (natural stance) perform choku zuki (straight punch): 10 times slow, 10 times fast and 10 times double punch (do 5 starting on the right and 5 on the left). that’s 30 punches in total. film from the front and from the side. makes 60.

now examine the video and find just one or two things you’d like to improve. repeat as necessary (perhaps also in kiba dachi).

you can also make your own exercises. if you practice kata i recommend breaking it down to short sequences. fix on thing then move on to the next. remember to film front and side as each one will reveal different details.

enjoy and send your comment!

oss.