English version of my Japanese-written post "落ちろ!棒、肘、そして腰(#110)" that is about my solo training of Musokai Karate.
Note: Who am I
・Name on blog is "Hamikara"
・A beginner student of Musokai Karate in Japan, started in November 2016, ranked as 7th kyu (Yes, indeed just a beginner!).
・Have experienced other style Karate (have 1st dan of full-contact style)
I did yesterday's training in front of my house entrance at 6:00 am.
Started from Bo practice, which seemed good to warm up.
What I practiced were;
・a sequence from Kesa-uchi to Ishizuki-uchi to Maki-uchi to Kesa-uchi agin,
・endless Ura-uchi (right to left to right...)
・doble strikes of Kesa-uchi
・Tokumine-no-kun kata 5 times
Based on my master(shihan) Kiyoshi Arakaki's lessons in Today, I tried to make use of Bo's "free fall" to accelerate Bo's speed furthermore, in addition to the feeling of "Bo's bouncing".
Bo is a long weapon.
Thus when I am trying to take up one side, the other side is falling.
So when taking up one side of Bo with "bouncing" feeling, simultaneously having the sense of the other side's "falling", will enhance Bo's speed and quickness.
Might be doubled.
Not scientific? Yes, scientific.
Feeling sometimes change body control drastically.
The result was not bad.
Bo got lighter.
Double strikes of Kesa-uchi that had seemed impractical to me, suddenly became practical in my feeling.
Improvement of this double strikes gave me a distinct feeling that my elbow was falling with bo's striking movement.
It must be the feeling required in Tsuki(punch).
Then I shifted to pure Karate training.
Tsukis after Bo training were felt nicer than usual.
Sure, as all of Musokai students are taught by shihan Arakaki, an elbow is brought forwards in Tsuki movement by large muscle in back,Latissimus dorsi.
Tsuki is not driven physically by gravity.
But possibly, the sense of elbow's free fall minimize other muscles' preventing functions against Tsuki that should be driven purely by Latissimus dorsi.
Bo got better.
Tsuki also got better.
They were gifts from "free fall" feeling.
At last I found, "Today is the Day of free fall. Everything shall be fallen."
Third thing to be fallen freely is pelvis.
In Naifanchi kata's cross-step movement after so-called Kagi-tsuki where I had the feeling of horizontal movement, I introduced sence of free fall.
Then the movement got much easter.
No stop, no preparation before cross-step.
Everything movement was in continuous flow.
Smooth and seemingly practical.
But it might not look nice from the viewpoint
of Kata competition.
I recalled shihan Arakaki's description in his book which said, "Naifanchi kata performed by intermediate students looks nicer than that by experts."
This is it?
Though I've not yet reached to intermediate level, I guess yes.
・Name on blog is "Hamikara"
・A beginner student of Musokai Karate in Japan, started in November 2016, ranked as 7th kyu (Yes, indeed just a beginner!).
・Have experienced other style Karate (have 1st dan of full-contact style)
・Started to post daily Musokai Karate training in English from December 2017. Other posts are listed in theme "Musokai Karate"