Martial Arts update

So I had Karate on Tuesday night plus Judo wednesday arvo I'll mainly focus on the cool things that happened there.

I'm really starting to like tuesday Karate classes because the Sensei always goes through Kihon (basics) and each time I learn something new about how I kick, punch or block the wrong way. This lesson however we spent the first majority of the class going through a different way to punch. I'm basically the lowest grade in the class so most of the stuff gets pretty advanced for me but I try to keep up as best I can. The first way you are taught to punch in Karate with a straight motion from the side of your floating rib to the desired target location. Along the way the fist turns from having the palm facing up to facing the floor. Basically the whole idea is get the fist from A to B as fast as possible with a straight line, in practice you usually start from the floating rib, but when practicing actual Kumite (sparring) use of the technique the punch starts from your choice of guard position. Two huge things I learned from that lesson about my punches is that I had formed a bad habit of turning my fist at approximately the same speed of my punch, the correct form is to turn the first 180 degrees in the last 10=20% of the punch extension, towards the end as much as possible. I think this is because the extra power generated by the Kaiten (turning) motion is only available if the fist turns faster than the punch. The second thing I learned was at the end of my punch I was slightly dropping my hand at the last millisecond so I hit the target, again wrong because the importance on punch delivery is that the motion is as straight as possible.

Aside from my problems, Sensei showed us a different way to deliver punches and kicks, we didn't go through kicks for lack of time but he showcased the difference. The difference of this delivery method is that as the fist turning towards the end you turn the fist past the point where your knuckles are parallel to the floor ending up at a 45 degree angle. The idea that is if your opponent has block your punch you can still try and use the same driving force to execute a slightly curved punch that penetrates guard. We did the same trick with roundhouses, in a high kick situation if you can turn your foot past the point where it is parallel to the floor you can drive it in through the guard. There is a risk with the roundhouse variant, if the hooked kick doesn't make contact against a trained opponent you've just trapped your leg. This slightly curved punch is also risky because rather than pulling back and trying to attack again, you continue for a few milliseconds which gives your opponent extra time to move or worse, counter. I would like to stress the difference between this punch and a 'haymaker' i.e. picture a drunken dude whirling his arms around or a 'hook' this method is neither of those. The elbow is extended to the same point as during a normal punch it is simply that the result of the over-twisting motion is a punch that moves slightly horizontally to reach the target. The punch does not follow a curve that would have no more it's more like a last moment tangent. This will take a lot of practice.

Judo! I had my first Judo lesson with the group on campus. I have to start off by saying that Judo is almost in every aspect different to Karate so it's really exciting to learn this while I'm here, and maybe continue in Australia who knows. Stretching is fairly the same however the post-stretch warm-up exercises are just...weird and crazy haha. They mainly involve traversing the floor in a straight line in different ways. First up was a standing forward double/triple roll hadn't done it in a while but I managed. Next is standing reverse over-head roll, this is getting freaky but keep going. Little harder was the cat roll, which is basically using only one hand to execute a curling roll, if using the right hand the roll starts along the upper arm to the right shoulder and then down to the left back kidney area. After that we switched to forward roll with legs spread wide apart, which is hard and then decided to do that backwards at which point I thought I would injure my neck but I finished safely. Up next was hand stands, which with my weight I'm not confident enough to attempt at the moment. Will need to gym a little more for that.

I mentioned these warm-ups before but I'l do so again briefly. They also have this mad abdominal exercise that looks totally ridiculous but I like its effectiveness. First up was kinda like doing Breaststroke without the water, without hands or feet, just forearms and knees. Next using only the tip of one shoulder and the opposing foot I traversed across the floor on my back. The motion was sort of like roll onto one side, curl up and then simultaneously spring forward using your back, with your shoulder as a gripping point of the floor and also using your feet to push your lower body off the floor. It's really hard to co-ordinate for the first time. There are a few more exercises however I couldn't do them because I was pretty much stuck on this next one. You start off lying on your back, facing perpendicular to the direction you intend to move with arms and feet off the floor. In order to move, you need to twist your arms and upper body in the opposite direction of the intended movement direction while kicking up with your legs to raise your body off the floor. You can imagine someone of my weight trying to do that, quite comical. That is the end of warm-ups, GROUND FIGHTING TIME!

Unlike Brazilian Ju Jitsu, Judo does not utilize strikes in any form nor does it involve hand scraping to the face. The basic rule for any choke is that you cannot grasp the heck with hands or use leg-only chokes. You can use clothes to choke, which is a very effective method to choke someone from the front or behind. Since we wear uniforms with long sleeves you can even use the inside of the sleeve to execute a oxygen choke, more commonly the elbow is using to execute a blood choke. Just for clarification there are two types of chokes to the neck, compressing the windpipe is an oxygen choke and placing pressure on the pulmonary artery and vein is a blood choke to the brain. I don't know which is more effective but I think blood might be because it stops oxygen delivery faster, but I'm not a biologist. Other submissions methods are triangle-choke and various forms of the arm bar, ground and pound is not allowed. Those are the main submissions I remember. All the attributes that used in Karate like speed, flexibility etc are used in Judo. I do find myself thinking a lot more in Judo because ground-fighting has it's pauses, you can't wonder off though because a quick shift and you are in trouble. Also I think it's a much better suited style for women's self-defense than the stuff I learn in Karate. Not that Karate isn't useful I just think in the most common scenario where a female would need to defend herself Judo would be more effective. Using the lethal moves of Karate...you may be charged with using excessive force. Against multiple attackers, I'd say Karate and some knowledge of Judo throws.

Anyway, we moved onto throwing practice just before sparring. Being my first time I wasn't able to practice every throw, heck I can't even do the one I was taught well enough yet. So I spent most of the time trying to figure out how to execute this throw. I forgot the name which is quite shameful but anyway, it's totally different from what I though and seriously awesome feeling getting it right. Grabbing the opponents uniform around the chest area(in the street obivously clothes, btw Judo in the street ain't a joke) and using your free hand to grab the opponents nearest arm/sleeve is the start. From here you form a slight L with the clothes grabbing arm and you pull the opponent off balance while also stepping forward with your balancing leg, next the sweeping leg passes by the opponent, on its return journey as you make contact you also tip your upper body forward so that their leg comes forward while their body goes backward. The contact point is your Achilles heel and your opponents Achillies heal. Because Judo uses the weight of the opponent as the power source, the heavier the are the more shock you feel hitting the floor if you don't do falling-training. I got quite a shock about half a second to a second where I totally vulnerable. This is the awesome thing about throws, after executing one you have momentary free reign to run away, assume a favourable offensive position, attempt submission or smack their lights out like in MMA. The other throw I was briefly showed was the side throw, same execution except that instead of pulling the opponent from infront towards yourself, you pull the opponent sideways towards you moving the majority of their balance onto the nearest leg and then you sweep that leg. After throws I watched my Senpai (Seniors) spar, they are really strong I'm so looking forward to training with them :)