Well it's good to have started back and I'm now learning a new kata - Pinan Sandan. There's a great bit in the middle where someone grabs your wrist and you turn into them, pulling them in towards you and striking (you really have to see it - try the link below, 3rd video in, it's also a good general resource and their downloads work).
pinan shodan (shito-rhy) with bunkai
I plan to learn no more new kata until I've really understood the moves from the three I 'know' to date. As said before, knowing the moves does not mean knowing the kata. It's also really hard to remember a sequence of meaningless moves, so you have to understand why you're doing them - ie, where your theoretical opponent is and what they are trying to do.
I continue to practice the basics daily since it takes no equipment and hardly any space (one of the things that makes karate a great hobby is it requires no special kit and no special place). It is frustrating not quite getting it as it should be. I remain challenged by my old friends poor stance and lack of hip movement (see earlier post) - particularly in reverse punching (gyaku-zuki) and punching with the leading hand (mae-ken). As for 'the snap', I can even rustle. There are children in the class who can snap with the best of them. The snap is the noise made by the cotton of the karate outfit as your limbs move at high velocity - it literally cracks the material like wind refilling a sail. I have quite a high quality, stiff outfit. No help at all. It seems skill alone can generate this noise, so this outlay was a total waste. I plan to celebrate when it happens to me, in secret of course, otherwise I'd appear odd to my non-karate friends. So for 2013 I resolve to master the hip movement and basic stances. I'll leave the snap for later.
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