tags: GKR
GKR: Getting more complicated
July 13th, 2005, by Rich.
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.
We’ve recently cancelled out gym membership in favour of (a) doing more diverse things and (b) not spending so much on a subscription that we don’t make the most of: admittedly I was going to circuits on average four times a week, but this is still not enough to warrant the cost. I digress; Karate is one of the more diverse things and the extra money allows us to do it more.
This week’s classes we’ve been practicing all the blocks we know so far, and the punches and the kicks, all practiced from a straight stance.
We also practiced 1st kata with several variations: no hands, shouting on every strike, shouting on every block, shouting on everything, and the somewhat different but useful, wibbly wobbly kata, where you slump and wibble through it to cool down, and the more relaxed nature helps improve your stance.
The other thing we seemed to do a lot of was turning through 180 and 90 degrees to the left and right. Cross the back leg over, turn 180, move the back leg in and out at a tangent to it’s original course, turn 90, repeat 4 times and you end up back where you started. Then, change stance, adn do it all in the opposite direction.
One thing we do need to do is 1st kata in reverse. i.e. begin by blocking to the right rather than the left.
Sensei John also told us we coudl go for a grading in 4 weeks. Unfortunately we’re already booked in to the whitfield volleyball tournament so we’ll miss our first opportunity to go for a belt, but this won’t affect our progress so it’s not a problem or a setback, just a delay.
As we exited one of the orange belts commented that our combined Kata is getting really good and a little “frightening”.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:54 pm
yes , its incredible when i’m doing 1st kata in dojo, i have 2 left feet,a terrible sence of direction and uncontrolable laughter, born out of frustration.(god help the person i run into down a dark alley)
but how satisfied i feel that one day it will all come together then onto next kata.hopefully by then i will of controlled my laughter.
enjoyment!!!
October 25th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Good site. I like the sound of your sensei using a ‘wibbly wobbly’ kata. I’ll suggest it to ours.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:05 am
hey all, i just bumped into this page and found it interesting to read. how many of you are struggling with 1st kata? it dosnt matter. knacho himself still practices 1st kate everyday, it can never be perfect. the way i found that helped was to do it as slowly as possible, to the point your legs seize up with the effort. by going so slowly, you have planty of time to think exactly where each foot and hand and headturn and hip angle and knee vend should be.
i do this really often, usually as a warm up before class, it works with all other kata’s aswell, and helped me to learn kata Sepai. good luck with your learning x
April 20th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Great article, i joined GKR karate back in October 2007, i’m very happy and impressed with attitude and atmosphere of the club, everyone is very friendly, polite and helpfull despite your grade level.
I found that it took me longer to learn first kata then it did learning some of the higher ones.
Good luck with your training, regards Mike.
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
ive just signed my son up in newcastle i think 1st kata is difficult due to the amount of turns.but im breaking it down into 4 blocks of 5 so he can learn them seperatly then combine them for the grading.the GKR website has some good downloads and theres a fair few 1st kata vids on youtube
i know the lower belt grades teaching is controversial but who better to teach the lower grades than hose who have it still fresh in there minds :-)