Heian Shodan!
This was to make sure our weight distribution is correct by kicking with the front leg.
Being a white belt is like having a heavy weight placed on your shoulders.
In one perspective, it means you’re making progress and can run with the big kids but it also means those around you expect you to get your act together and stop faffing around.
At least this is what the monologue in my head is like when I’m training karate at the Horison Karate Centre on Ontdekkers Road.
Doing something I’m starting to enjoy means that I become my own biggest critic but sensei Wendy Wannenberg will be there to remind me that I’m still just learning.
In this week’s session, we went back to the basics, starting with Gedan Barai or downward block, making sure our stances and execution are flawless.
“We started the class with emphasis on practicing Gedan Barai or downward block. It’s also our starting position for basics. We put our emphasis on the correct wind up, timing of togetherness of hands and feet and training of the pulling hand which is called Ikite,” said sensei Wendy.
We then moved onto practicing Oizuki and Mae Geri then incorporated the two in repitition.
At this point, things were going a bit smoothly and I had done nothing to embarrass myself but I might have spoken a bit too soon.
Our training progressed to training with weights and we had to use the arm with the weight to execute all the different blocking techniques.
This does not sound terribly hard but when you have a two kilogram piece of metal weighing you down, you tend to forget the techniques. I am still relatively new to Karate so I kept on confusing the techniques and even after watching the other members, I still couldn’t get it completely correct.
“This was a form of condition training but training technique. Age Uke, Soto Uke, Uchi Uke and Gedan Barai, all with the same hand while holding the 2kg weight,” said sensei Wendy.
We then went onto practice Shuto Uke in Ku Kutsudachi, which is back stance.
This was to make sure our weight distribution is correct by kicking with the front leg.
However, the surprise towards the end of the session was when started learning kata.
Kata is a sequence of movements and for me is the most exciting part when it comes to karate.
Poor Brittney Singh, a first black belt in karate had the chance of showing us white belts how the kata, known as Heian Shodan.
According to Brittney, this is the easiest kata to learn. After getting halfway through the kata while huffing and puffing out of sheer exhaustion, the session came to an end.
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