Feeling great!

I can't say that I've felt this good in a long time!  I'm getting my gym time in every week (largely in thanks to my very energetic and eager younger brother), and I'm feeling sharper in the dojo.  Sensei has gotten me thinking a lot about what the rest of my body is doing (or not doing) during kata when I'm standing in static stances with my arms doing techniques.  The results are beginning to show, I think.

I'm back to squatting over 200 lbs. fairly easily, I'm very excited about that.  On the other hand, my deadlifts haven't suffered in any way, which is extremely exciting!

This week is going to be difficult, presentations and exams, and not nearly enough time to actually train, but I'm going to get as much time in as possible.  It's time to start working on my hand speed again.

Back to the books, wish me luck!

Hypertrophy I

Starting up at the gym again today...it was painfully fun!  Starting the periodization sequence from the beginning, with Hypertrophy I (Hypertrophy is muscle growth).  The idea behind the hypertrophy routines are muscle confusion.  Every time you repeat a workout the rep ranges and rest periods will have changed from the time before.  The routine is comprised of 2 workouts that you will complete 12 times each (that's 24 total workouts).  I'm planning on lifting at minimum 3 times per week, so I'm looking at a maximum of 8 weeks on Hypertrophy I.  By varying the rep ranges, each workout will illicit different physiological responses.  The standard rep/set used by body builders and the average weight lifter is 3-4 sets of 8-10 reps each set.  This is generally accepted as the best range for steady muscle growth.

The beauty of this routine is that by encouraging different responses, your body has difficult time adapting to the routine, which puts additional stress in the muscles, which will illicit the greatest muscular growth while also increasing a relative level of muscular endurance.  As an athlete, we want functional, large and strong muscles, not just one or two of the three.  Here is the first day of Workout A, I'm listing only the maximum weight lifted for each exercise:

Alternating Sets of:
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press 5x5 - 60
Cable Seated Rows 5x5 - 130

Alternating Sets of:
Dumbbell Shoulder Press 5x5 - 45
Wide-grip Lat Pulldown 5x5 - 150

Alternating Sets of:
Close-grip Barbell Bench Press 5x5 - 115
High Pull 5x5 - 95

Finish with:
Swiss-ball Crunches 3x15 - 11

Each set was followed by a 90 sec. rest before continuing to the alternate set.  The only variance was with the crunches, those were followed by 60 sec. rest.

Killer to say the least!  I was feeling it in my arms after finishing the first alternating set, and I was dead after the last one...the crunches were just icing on the cake.

All this was followed by a cardio routine called "Metabolic Overdrive."  This is designed to, as it's called, kick your metabolism into overdrive and just melt off fat.  Here it is:

5 min. warm up
repeat the following 3 times:
1 min. high intensity
2 min. medium-high intensity
finish with:
5 min. cool down

60 grams of protein later, and I'm feeling like life is worth living again...

Hopefully I won't be crying in the morning.  Wish me luck!

Speed, speed, agility and more speed!

In an attempt to take my kumite to the next level, I've approached a good friend of mine for tips on improving hand speed.  On top of being a world ranked shobu ippon fighter,he is also a fantastic boxer, so I figured he of all people will be able to give me tips.  The drills he gave me were simple and tremendously effective.

His theory for making your hands faster, and it makes perfect sense, is to make your hands move at top speed through a full range of motion, the drill for doing so is as follows:

Assuming a regular jiyu-kamae, perform 200 kizami-zuki non-stop; do not concern yourself with completion of the technique, worry completely about fully extension and full retraction at full speed, next perform 200 uraken-uchi with the same type of technique, but keep your elbow up and pointing forward.  Lastly, perform 200 gyaku-zuki, but for these perform with full kime and lock at the end, but still retraction and extension are at maximum speed.  Naturally perform these drills for both hands.  I tried to do this for the first time yesterday...I was able to get through the kizami-zuki, and only 50 gyaku-zuki...after that I had trouble lifting my arms.  I'm going to be working on get to the full counts through this next week.

For agility I will be using various cone drills, and agility ladder exercises; the goal is constantly limit your contact time with the ground.  Eventually combine the quick feet and the quick hands with an explosive movement, and there you have a powerfully coordinated attack!

So there you have my current training plan, let's see how this treats for the next few weeks!

Wish me luck!

New points to work on

I ended up doing fairly well in the America's Cup, not as well as I did last year, but still well enough to keep my head up.  On the other hand, I still have plenty of space for improvement and many, many pieces to add to my overall game to get me on the podium at EuroCup in November.

Kata

There were two big issues of note with my kata on Sunday.  I performed Sochin and Kanku-sho, two very different kata with differing methods of approaching them, but the fundamentals behind them still remain the same.  I felt great about my performance of Sochin, and nobody had anything bad to say about it, but I'll have to review the video before I can say anything further.  With Kanku-sho, Safar Sensei pointed out to me that I had a tendency to cut some techniques short in an effort to go faster.  This is a major flow in kata competition, you'll see these kinds of short cuts in WKF competition.  It's a big no-no, but somehow competitors in that arena can get away with it.  It just won't fly in the AJKA-I.

So, first major point of improvement is going to be completion of techniques, the second point which will help with the first is longer and better locked stances.  I have a tendency to let my stances get higher as I go through the kata and my quads start to fatigue more.  More than that I have so much momentum but very weak ability to stop my momentum on a dime; and that's where I really need to improve.  My katas are fast and dynamic and very powerful, but they lack the crispness of the men that beat me.  If I can combine all of that together, I'd be unbeatable.

Kumite

One great thing that came out of the competition was the knowledge that I do, in fact, know how to control the mat, and make my opponent move to my body and not vice versa.  The big flaw that I noted, and was also pointed out to me was the fact that I get in there and use my body movement to get my opponent where I want them, but I fail in going in for the kill.  My mental distancing is way off.  My body is in the right distancing, but my eyes and brain don't seem to want to gauge the distances properly.  This leads to the other big problem, not taking full use of my control over my opponent.

My focus in training is going to be long distance technique, so that when my brain feels I'm out of range I'll still be able to go because my body will probably be in the correct range to attack.  I'm going to start three combinations almost exclusively in kumite (all of these, obviously, will incorporate zone blocking as part of the sequence):

1. kizami-zuki, gyaku-zuki, maeshi mawashi-geri - this is a very fast and powerful long range combination if done correctly, and one that I can use effectively...I just need the confidence to use it.

2. gyaku-zuki, step-in gyaku-zuki (ashi barai): another great long distance technique with a powerful follow up for when I get in close.  The ashi barai will be the optional addition, but double gyaku-zuki is the important part.

3. kizami-zuki, maeshi ura-mawashi-geri/mae-geri: this last combination keeps my options open, if the opponent maintains distance then an extra shift in with the lead leg ura-mawashi geri is a great option, but I also like the idea of riding in the hip for a solid mae-geri oi-zuki combination, which can always be changed to just a oi-zuki.

The last point that I need to work on in kumite is get my body to hit my landmarks as Scarano Sensei put it. Toe to toe is an optimal way to fight somebody rather than torso to torso, cut next to the body to only have to deal with two limbs instead of four.

Masters Seminar

So the weekend is finally over, oh what a weekend it was!  The tournament had a fantastic turnout, with a significant increase in competitors this year (sadly the increase was in the NKF/WKF division, and not in the AJKA shobu-ippon division).  Hopefully, next year will have an even bigger turnout, and so on and so forth.  Anyway, back to the seminar, the things we learned were more than interesting, and multiple applications.

What we worked on wasn't strictly applicable to karate in the classical, training sense, nor was it singularly applicable to shiai kumite, but it was also very applicable in real life altercations.  Here's a quick run down of things we did, and more specifically, things that I will need to be working on in the months to come:

Sensei Nathan Scarano
Sensei Nate is a sweeping expert, if you ever watch his highlight videos on YouTube, the majority of his techniques and attacks revolves around outside reaps and sweeps.  In his portion of the seminar his focus was, of course, on sweeping.  Not with regards to the actual sweeping technique, but how to use your body to set up for sweeps.

In any typical sparring situation, the competitors are generally matched up belt knot to belt knot, and this is fine, but when fighting you're better of cutting your opponent in half so that you only have to deal with two weapons (one hand and one foot) rather than 4 weapons.  To do this you need to go toe-to-toe, your front foot lined up with your opponent's front foot.  The difference is very subtle, but by setting up in this position, the hips are allowed to maintain their forward drive without having to over rotate to execute the sweep.

Doing this movement without distracting your opponent first is very difficult, though, so we introduce to the concept of zoning and making your hands take up double and triple duty.  Through your kizami-zuki, but instead of leaving that hand dead, use it to immediately take away your opponents lead hand, opening him up for a second attack and distracting him further to set up the sweep.

Sensei Kevin Warner
While kata is Warner Sensei's forte, his kumite is something spectacular and dynamic to watch.  As Scarano Sensei favors sweeping techniques, Warner Sensei prefers kicking, specifically mawashi-geri and ushiro-geri.  Warner Sensei's session built upon what we worked on with Scarano Sensei, and looked primarily to fix the issues he saw with our techniques.  Warner Sensei's main observation of our first session was that many of us disengaged our hips before moving - this being a huge tell in competition that can give your opponent the fractions of a second needed to score first.

We worked on keeping our hips tucked and engaged towards our opponents without breaking the hip when driving into lead leg mawashi and inside footsweeps with the lead leg; particularly in combination.  Warner Sensei's main point was that with the hip constantly engaged your creating a dynamic tension like a spring which just needs to be released, not to be wound up extra.  Once your hip is cocked forward, you can throw any technique with minimal set up and very little telegraphing.

Sensei Leslie Safar
As usual Safar Sensei's session was very basic, but had a lot of insight into the simplicity of technique.  Safar Sensei's primary focus was on maintaining proper range for execution of technique and using body management to create distance and space.  In real kumite, a karate-ka doesn't really need to move his/her feet all that much to create space, but only need to rock the hips in and out of range.  Move the hip and the body should follow.  The other major point that Safar Sensei had was to just keep it simple, don't over complicate simple actions and screw them up completely.  Keep to your bread and butter.

I learned a lot through this weekend, about myself and about my karate.  My kumite matches were far from my best performances, and I know I can easily beat both of the opponents that I had.  I lost to one and I had a draw with the other.  Both of those matches should have been mine.  Scarano Sensei told me that I dominated the mat, that I controlled the pace of the matches (especially the second one), but once I had control I didn't do anything with it.  I need to start using my ability to control the ring, and add in techniques, or plays as Coach put it.  I'm going to work on three combinations from now on, those are my bread and butter that will work for me 100% of the time.

The other thing that this weekend highlighted for me was that while I am fairly fit, I've definitely let myself go with regards to my fitness.  I've gained a not insignificant amount of weight, and I've slowed down a little bit. It's time to get back on the wagon, and get my ass in gear.  Prioritizing needs to come first, school and dojo are my priorities, nothing else matters right now.  Along with the dojo comes the general fitness work that I need to put in.  Running doesn't seem like a viable option anymore, but swimming is definitely a good option.

Starting next week I'm going to begin hitting the weights three days per week, swimming three days per week and dojo at least three days per week.  Wish me luck!

Masters Seminar coming soon!

I can't wait for next weekend!  Five hours of karate with Safar Sensei, Scarano Sensei and Warner Sensei!  Three of the most incredible karate-ka I've ever met.  To top it all of, America's Cup is the next day!

Leslie Safar Sensei, 9th Dan AJKA-I - after moving to the US from Hungary, he became Okazaki Sensei's first and top student in Philadelphia.  Coming up through the ranks under such a big name in Shotokan, he had the opportunity to train under the likes of Nakayama and Nishiyama.  Now, he's the International Technical Director and Chief Instructor (Europe) for the AJKA-I.  He tours throughout the US every year, but spends the majority of his time teaching all over Europe.  Over the years he has built and developed one of the most comprehensive Instructor Training programs in the world, which graduates new instructors every year.

Kevin Warner Sensei, 6th Dan AJKA-I - I can't say enough about Warner Sensei, the man is one of the most highly accomplished karate-ka I have ever met.  He has competed all over the world in both kata and kumite, and has always excelled.  Kata, though, is where he has his claim to fame.  He has successfully competed nationally and internationally with the AJKA, AAU, WUKO, JKA & KWF.  In 2007, he captured the gold in kata at the WUKO world championships, and has been kata champion four years in a row at the AJKA Euro-Cup.  His kata can only be compared to the artwork of Michelangelo, it is just something beautiful to behold.

Nathan Scarano Sensei, 6th Dan AJKA-I - another fierce competitor, possibly the fiercest and most dominating I have ever seen.  Not one to ever sacrifice the efficacy of his technique for the sake of scoring points, Scarano Sensei has nonetheless etched his name in history as one of the best fighters of the generation.  He has competed on 9 separate national teams, and captained 5 of them, in 2004 and 2006 he was ippon kumite champion at the AJKA-I Euro-Cup, and led the US team to team kumite victory several times over the years.  Scarano Sensei is now the senior coach for the AJKA-I US Shotokan Karate Team, and has led the team 3 successful international competitions in Canada, Hungary and Germany.

I can't wait for this seminar, it's going to be incredible!  Details will follow a few days after!

Wish me luck!