Continuing Steps in Karate

Following on from the previous post regarding the dual nature of uke-waza, most beginning and intermediate students find it possible to stop or at least weaken the strength of an attack, although this may not always be consistently possible.  What they do find very difficult to do with any reasonable probability of success is also weaken or off-balance the opponent at the same time. From trying to teach students how to effectively perform and use uke-waza over the last few years I feel two of the major reasons are the shape  of the arm and the direction  of movement. Shape Most beginners and intermediate students, in my experience, hold their arms too compactly.  Their elbow is too close to the body, and the forearm is held at about 90 degrees to the upper arm.  This shape is easy to collapse when force is applied to it, and the lats and shoulder girdle are not activated, meaning that it is only the strength of the arm muscles that can be applied....

Or, why it's not a bad thing if you don't get it right all at once. Two years ago, I learned my first bo kata, shuji-no-kon.   I learned it in a weekend and took notes and videos and have practised it regularly ever since.   These last couple of weeks, we have revisited this kata and in just two run-throughs with my sensei, I picked up two major, fundamental flaws in how I was moving and half a dozen smaller things to work on as well.   My initial thoughts were along the lines of - "I wish I had known/realised this ages ago", but my second (and subsequent) thoughts were - "I probably wouldn't have understood beforehand anyway". I'm seeing this in my empty-hand work too.   Improvement seems to happen piecemeal or in sudden jumps, when something that I have seen many times before just suddenly stands up, slaps me on the face and shouts "THIS is how you should be doing it!"   And the reason why, I think, is that the brain and body can only...

In stereotypical Japanese karate, the three pillars of karate education are said to be kihon, kata and kumite.   Okinawan karate has a different emphasis, with greater regard being given to things such as hojo undo and analysis of kata technique/principles.  Still, common to all is the practice of isolated techniques such as punches, blocks and kicks: kihon . In English, I often see kihon translated as "basics" or basic techniques.  (a disclaimer: I have no ability with the Japanese language.  Just as my Italian is limited to a few musical terms, so my Japanese is limited to the smattering of martial arts terminology that most karateka pick up along the way.  This post is going to be entirely not based in my deep understandings of the Japanese language.)   And indeed that is how I practiced the majority of my karate for several years when I learned shotokan.  A typical training session would spend the major portion of the time stepping forwa...