Bruce lee I'm Not. (Karate)

Name: MaryanneH

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	Karate
Date:	30/07/04 (90 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great for the fitness

Disadvantages: Sore muscles , loads of laundry

To mention Martial Arts brings up images of Bruce Lee, Van Damme and all the others that get paid a fortune for throwing a few good looking techniques. Whilst these stars are undoubtably very talented and I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of them down a dark alley, the every day reality of Karate is somewhat different.

The style that I study is a form of karate that has evolved from the traditional Wado ryu that it started out as. There are very different styles of club available within the 'Wado' category, the really good thing about this is it means that there really is something for everybody. The club I train with is NKA freestyle Karate which have a website www.freestyle-karate.com and have clubs across the south of England. What I enjoy most about the NKA is the move away from traditional wado etiquette, there is a quick bow rather than the formal one and we study more kickboxing techniques with bagwork, sparring, fighting techniques whilst still keeping the traditional Kata (more about them later) and line work to learn the kicks and punches. For me this gives a good mix as I have tried the traditional clubs which I found dull and I missed the sparring and Kickboxing which was not dull but I missed the technique work.

The typical club night starts up with the warm ups. These are absolutely essential and exhausting. They include jogging around the hall and other aerobic activity, stretching, press ups and sit ups. The stretching improves the height of your kicks and increases suppleness also the most important addition of preventing injury. We then move on to techniques these are done in lines and consist of practising all the punches, blocks and kicks and ensuring that the higher belts also know the japanese names for them all. If done properly with maximum effort th
is is also very exhausting.

My favourite section is learning Kata. These are series of blocks, punches and kicks with the occasional jump which have to be learnt in the right order and every stance (position of feet) and arm position has to be accurate. You either love em or hate em. The point of Kata is to start to put together the individual techniques into meaningful combinations so you can break them down to work out why you would be doing these moves in this order, from a fighting or a self defence point of view. There are 15 that I am aware of and 12 that I know.

Most peoples original motivation for learning Karate is either to learn how to fight or to learn how to defend yourself. The first group give up fairly quickly when they realise they are not invincible. We spend time every now and then working out really good techniques for self defence techniques that follow natural body mechanics for example if someone attacks you in a certain way they will be standing in a certain way to do it. you can then use this to either take them down or break the grip and there is little they can do about it, then comes the most important self defence technique - RUN AWAY! Karate is not about teaching you how to stand and fight, it is to give you the confidence to either not get into the situation in the first place or get out of it if you do.

Sparring is a great for stress relief and for building up the fitness (something I am still working on and far from achieving) We do semi contact which has to be light and controlled. Again this helps to develop ways of putting the techniques together and knowing which areas to attack. The key to sparring, and any form of sport is relaxing the muscles and getting the power from a good technique rather than really tense muscles which is more likely to damage you as you need so much energy to throw the techni
que.

The only other important addition to the training is bag work - my least favourite. It does give you the chance to really punch/kick something hard but after a few minutes (again maximum effort required) is completely exhausting, but helps to build up stamina.

We also have regular courses and competitions for Kata and sparring. The courses give the opportunity to do weapons training Numchuku (as in Bruce lee enter the dragon) sticks and bow staff (Robin Hood?)

Now the cost bit, and this seems fairly standard across all of the ones I have looked into. £30 to join, this includes a suit and your first years licence. £15 per year licence renewal, this is required for insurance purposes and you have to sign the I promise I won't attack anyone bit, it also details all your achievements. Gradings £15 to start with then go up towards the higher belts, this is a test you take every few months to move up to the next belt. The weekly (or twice weekly in my case) training fee is £4.00.

I would recommend karate to anyone we have members (black belts) in their 60's (maybe older) and kids as young as 5 all who enjoy it and whilst I will never be Bruce Lee and I am not a good fighter, I have the confidence to know I have a chance of getting out of a situation if I ever have to.

Summary: