KarateTraining

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KarateTraining

Things to know before you train...

The object of karate is to transmit muscular power of the whole body into a striking limb (used like a weapon) thats will be moved at speed to focus on a specific target area or object. To increase the effectiveness and efficiency you must use the correct stance, breathing and timing.

The whole body can be used as a weapon in karate. Striking with one finger can be just as effective as a full blow kick if focused at the correct target.

Good Form:

Attitude-karate is not for over-eager and aggresive attitudes. You should hold a non-malicious, kind, focussed attitude. This will allow you to take care not to harm your opponent. A certain 'controlled' level of aggression is good in fighting competition.
Vigorous application-defines speed and power of technique, and desire to succeed with a given technique.
Total state of awareness(zanshin)-your should be aware at allatages of a technique, including afterwards, this is when you should be aware of counter techniques.
Timing-it is important to time your techique to make it as effective as possible. Distance is also an important factor in this.

Basic Training
Training basically consists of blocks, strikes and kicks, stances, balance, breathing, and focus. The name given to the practice of these components is kihon. You can practice on your own or with partners/groups.

Stances
Various stances are designed for different purposes.

Those with low centre of gravity are ideal for balance and powerful punching. Where as others are designed for ease of mobility and speed. you should learn and master several stances, don't just rely on the one.

&; ...more info. on stances coming soon

Generating power
Power is generated using the whole of the body. Performing rotary movement helps you to transmit velocity and power to the striking limb. For example twisting the hips will add more power to a roundhouse kick (mawashigeri)

Breathing
Breathing makes up part of the mental preparation for a karate-ka. The ability to breath properly comes from some of the Zen principles.

Breathing patterns can bring about a mental calm immediately prior to exploding into action (like in the kata seishan).

There are 4 Distinct phases to each pattern.

Inhale through the nose until the lungs are full of air.
Force the air down towards your diaphragm, as you do this in time you will improve your technique and it will strengthen the muscles of the abdomen at the same time. The ability to breath in the area of the abdomen and the use of the kiai helps generate power.
Exhale quietly through the nose.
Force the last remaining air out of your lungs.

Warm up
Before you begin your main training session it is important that you carry out a good, effective warm up.

A good warm up prepares your body for the more strenuous exercises you are about to carry out, and protects against the risk of injury. This works as the gentle exercises you carry out raise the body'score temperature and the general muscle temperature. Increasing the muscle temperature loosens them, makes tem more supple and pliable.

It also prepares your heart and respiratory rate. This increases the blood flow, which in turn increases the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the working muscles. All this helps to prepare the muscles tendons and joints also.

Another advantage is that it helps you to prepare and focus your mind on the training you are about to do. It brings your attention away from the outside world, whatever you may have been doing earlier on in the day, or whatever is happening outside the dojo, so that you have full concentration for what you are about to learn/practice.

You should obviously start off with steady exercises and build these up gradually to more energetic exercises. You should place emphasis on streching exercises to protect your muscles and improve their suppleness. Without a 'reasonable' level of suppleness many kicks are impossible to carry out.

General warm up

5-10 mins light execercise to increase the heart rate..gradually increasing in pace.

example exercises:

Running
Skipping
Star jumps
Squat thrusts
Press ups
Sit ups / crunches

You could do a combination of these exercise to make the warm up more interesting.

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Static stretching

Stretch all major muscle groups.

posstion youself so that the muscle or group of muscles is stretched under tension. As this postion is held it allows the muscles, and the tendons to lengthen, giving them a greater range of movement and reducing the risk of injury.

example exercises:

standing legs apart-pulling down to the left anckle and the right, then down to the middle.
standing upright and then reaching down towards your toes as far as you can-getting your hands flat on the floor if possible.
box and side split positions.

static stretch

karate specific warm up

Exercises in this section of the warm up should resemble movements that will be used during the karate training session.

example exercises:

Circling whrists

Twisting the waist (upright or bent over position)

Gentle front and back kicks

Gentle kata training

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Dynamic stretching

This involves a controlled, soft bounce or swinging motion to force a particular body part past its usual range of movement. You should gradually increase the force of the bounce or swing is but don't let it become radical or uncontrolled. These exercises should also resemble the movement carried out in karate training.

example exercises:

Swinging the leg straight up and down (axe kick movement) using the muscles to swing the leg as high as possible.
Circling the leg in a crescent kick movemnet (as above).
Punches, and rotating arms from the shoulder.

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Etiquette

A very important aspect of training in karate is to learn and perform the etiquette, this is the show your discipline and respect for the dojo in which you train, fellow students, and your Sensei.

Students should be clean and tidy at all times, this shows respect to the art, and also to the Sensei and fellow students.
The instructor is always address by the studetns as Sensei whilst in the training dojo. Sensei is a word simply meaning 'teacher', and more indepthly meaning 'he who has gone before'. This mean that whatever your Sensei is teaching you, he has done before and understood. Before entering the dojo everybody must remove their foorwear and pause to bow (rei) as they enter and leave.
Types of bow:

Shomen ni rei sign of repect to training area
Sensei ni rei bow to instructor
Otagani rei bow to the dojo and all assembled
Shihan rei used by both teachers and students

Equipment
Belts The belt (obi) is the only thing that distinguishes one student from another. It represents a students experience.See more about the karate belt in KarateHistory

|White     10th Kyu

|Red         9th Kyu

|Yellow    8th Kyu

|Orange   7th Kyu

|Green     6th Kyu

|Blue      5th Kyu

|Purple     4th Kyu

|Brown      3rd Kyu

|Brown     2nd Kyu

|Brown     1st Kyu

|Black     1st Dan...

|....Black 10th Dan

Clothing
A light of medium weight suit is usually worn to train in, but the karate-ke by their individual preference may choose to wear a heavier suit for competition. A tradidtional karate suit is white with the style badges shown on the left side of the jacket and draw string trousers. No matter the weight, the suit is light-fitting-like a judo suit.

The jacket should be long enough in length to finish below the hip, maybe half way down the thigh.Women may wear a plainn white t-shirt under there jakcet, men shoud not wear anything under their jacket. Sleeves must comeat least half way down the forearm, they must not be rolled up. The jacket is tied using the appropriate belt donoting the karate-kas' grade.

Trouser legs must come a tleast two-thirds of the way down the shin, they must not be rolled up.

You can expect a karate suit (gi) to cost generally between £20 and £50.

A sport karate suit is usually made up of several colours, and possibly a pattern, with the club and/or style badge shown somewhere on the suit (left collar, back of jacket, leg of trouser), and maybe the students name, or team name.

You can expect to spend from £20 to £150 on this type of gi.

Shoes are not worn.

A Hachimaki (head band) can be worn intraining, but not competition.

Suits smust be clean and ironed.

It is important to only purchase a karate-gi that you will be comfortable to train in.

Protection
Most karate-ka only wear safety/protective equipment when they are sparring in the club(dojo), or fighting in competition (it is compulsary here). For example:

Gloves
Foot pads

Groin guard (Jockstrap)

Head Guard

Mouth guard (Gum shield)

Shin pads

Breast protector

Dojos and fees

Dojo A dojo with a wooden floor is ideal karate training, a matted area within the dojo is even better. As most of karate practice does not involvethrowing,amatted area such as the ones used in judo is not necessary, it would slow down the movement of the karate-ka. Mats used should be non-slip and low-friction. Padded mats are sometimes used Makiwara.

Training aids:

Heavy bags/angled bags
punch/kick bags vinyl/leather
free standing kick bags/men (bob)
kick shields/thai pads
focus mitts/double sided hand targets
speed balls(paltform or floor-ceiling)/hook and jab bags
bag gloves
leg stretch machines
medicine balls
eagle grippers/tension hand exercisers
break boards
skipping ropes
weights

Fees Three types of fees are membership, lesson, and licence:

Membership: fees vary from club to club some memberships may have to be paid annually and some are just a one-offpayment when you first join.
lesson prices also vary. For a 1-2hour lesson you will look to pay from £2.50 to £5. One-to-one lesson prices may vary depending on which aspect of karate you wish to be trained in on that particular day. pricesmay very from £15 to £30 for an hour.
Licencing fees: These vary depending on who you buy your insurance from and cover you for varying amount also.

Summary-an effective training programme

training should be systematic, progressive, and hard-both technically and physically

'warm up' before training and 'cool down' after training

constantly check and adjust actions of ingividual techniques and stances

check coordination and your breathing for each technique

practice techniques in both stances (both sides of your body) eaqually

be attentive to your partner or opponent

use a mirror to monitor your movements during training

use punch bags and pads etc as aids to perfect your technique

Training Main...

Basic techniques

contact points

fist to create a proper fist first you should bend your fingers inwards and tightly grip the first two fingers with your thumb. DO NOT HOLD YOU TUMB UNDER YOUR FINGERS. Contact is made with the knuckles of the first and middle fingers of the clenched fist. The tighter the fist the stronger the wrist-this is important.

back of the fist as above, however the wrist is slightly bent back for this technique. This technique is good for striking the side of the head.

knifehand this can be used for blocking AND attacking. Your thumb should be bent inwards showing a 'v' shape so that it does not get caught and is not injured. This is aslo often used in wood breaking, and commonly found in katas.

spearhand this can be used to strike the 'softer' parts of the opponents body (e.g. abdomen). The hand position is as above ,howver, you may have your middle finger bent slightly as you are striking with the middle 3 fingers and they should be inline.

single knuckle fist this is the same as the normal fist but with the middle knuckle extended. Use your thumb to secure the finger tip of your first finger.

wrist/palm heel this is idealfor both striking and blocking, using the bottom of the palm-just above the wrist. It is effective when used in strikes to the face and stomach.

elbow You can use this to strike from any direction (forwards, sideways, up, down ,and backwards!)

heel used in back kicks and hook kicks mainly.
instep often used in roundhouse kicks, and can be used for chin kicks/crescent kicks. For safety toes should be pointed outwards.
ball of foot most commonly used for front kicks but can also be used for other kicks such as roundhouse. You should keep your toes pulled back.
side of foot/ knife foot usually used for side kicks.
knee this is a good technique to use to the stomach, ribs, or face particually.

Attacking and Defending

In karate you must learn how to defend against attacking moves as well as making them.

Basic object of karate combat: One fighter looks for an opening to attack and the other looks to evade the attack and hopefully also to performan a counter attack.The fighters have to look for that first opening to gain an advantage over their opponent.

3 ways to attack:

kicking You can put more distacne between yourself and your opponent if you use a kick rather than a punch.The risk of a counter attack is then reduced. Your opponent may still counter attack but you will have more time too see and defend against this attack.
punching As a karate-ka you need to be equally strong with both hands, this way you increase your chance of catching your opponent unaware.
sweeping This is good for taking your opponent off balance before throwing a further punch or kick in order to score.

TxT BooK Technique...

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Maegeri Jodan

From a relaxed fighting stance pull your back knee up and forwards twisting slightly as you do so-changing your guard so that your body is protected throughout the kick
Push forward from your hips towards your target
Your standing leg should be slightly bent to help you balance.
Pull your toes back tightly and strike with the ball of the foot
thrust your hips forwards creating increased power and speed.

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