boakes.org » Physical Jerks

To extend last week’s golden nugget that “the preparation is as important as the strike”, this week it was highlighted that the return from the strike is just as important: this was achieved with the help of some nursery school sized chairs. More…

Last night, though we’ve not graded yet, we had our first beyond-basics lesson. More…

It’s becoming a bit of a habit now; Sensei John asked Rich to take the warmup again last night. More…

Our Sensei’s Sensei visited our Dojo yesterday. It was fascinating to see someone so skilled and agile demonstrating the moves (even more so than Sensei John who is a little older than Sensei Simon), and it was also good to have two experienced instructors on hand to notice things. More…

This week we took delivery of some small Reebok hand weights. More…

What we began doing last week, and continued this week, was de-training the “left follows right” mentality, this is apotentially bad habit that can come automatically from practicing the base moves. i.e left, follows right, follow left, ad infinitum. More…

Last night we went to our second Friday night class. As newbies to the group it was cool that Sensai John chose Rich to take the warmup, this time with no warning at all. Rich did a sterling job, although did threaten to lapse into boxercise warm up at one time, and backed out of what could have been an epic ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ warm up finale. More…

Until now we’ve been going to karate once a week, easing ourselves into it slowly. Last week we took two classes, and this week we’ll be doing the same. More…

This week Emma was called out front and took the warm up, and did it very well indeed, though i think we need to make everyone warm up more because the general fitness level of the class is quite low. Conversely the speed of uptake on the 1st and 2nd Kata has been very good according to Sensei John, who’s been surprised that a whole class has kept largely in-step at such a brisk pace. More…

It has happened. It will happen. London 2012.

Everyone that backed the bid played their part. The British Olympic committee played a blinder by focusing on economic viability, youth and global integration, and (who’d have thought) the Frenchie’s lent a hand too. Merci beaucoup! More…