Last Saturday and Sunday (12, 13 of May), I was teaching the
annual black belts and instructors seminar in Dojo Stara Wiez, Poland, there
were over 300 participants, it was an amazing spirit and energy.
I had a real joy teaching this group, imagine 300 people
working and putting their energy for the same purpose, really trying to
understand the subtleties of Nishiyama’s karate. In this group there were all
levels, from world champions to young coming up athletes to long time
practitioners who just want to keep bettering themselves.
It is thanks to Vodek who for 20 years share the passion and
vision of karate with the Polish people, Vodek works tirelessly to inspire and
motivate the Polish karate people with great results.
We were working on Posture and its affects on optimizing
karate technique, understanding stance and its principles, and we cover many fundamentals
but mainly we went deep into Kime and its many angles.
As far as kumite, we worked on Oji Waza (response technique)
in the first day, understanding the footwork, the breath and the mental state.
In the second day we focused on Shikake Waza (set up
techniques), estimating the opponent, making optimal distance for our strategy,
we talked about reacting to the opponent reaction to your set up, rather than mechanically
doing the footwork, and doing so with your breath rather than with your brain.
And we always reflect from kumite to kata and vice versa,
recognizing how the kata gives us the tools for effective kumite, and it is
through the kata that we digest kumite principles into our nervous system, so
when we do kumite we are free to apply our strategy and timing and our bodies
know what and how to do.
Thank you all for the spirit and great enthusiasm, I felt
elevated, it was fun.
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