Notes for 5/12/07

Here are some notes that I gathered from GKA today...

- I finally had the chance to practice some serious kata. I haven't done them in quite some time, so I was pretty rusty to start out. One thing that has been bothering me since I have been doing kata is that my body feels extremely stiff when I do them. I don't know why that happens or how to fix it, but it just happens. The end result is a lack of balance and awkward feeling movements. I don't really know if it's something that goes away with time, or if there is some other way that I can think about doing them.

- Before I move on, I would just like to say something about kata. For being as important as it is, Kata seems to be rarely practiced compared to everything else. I can definately understand why, since kata is generally only "needed" during testing verses waza being needed everytime we walk into the dojo. Even so, I would still prefer to practice it more as I can only see the complacency of the importance of kata biting me in the future once I get to higher ranks. The kata drills don't have to be more than an hour. Even 20 minutes would be nice to do some fine tuning.

- Now on to the regular practice. We did a lot of different drills that tested my endurance and drive for perfection. Without getting too specific about the lessons learned, I was told to extend my left arm more. It's another thing that I should keep in mind to make sure that I increase my speed and strenght without decreasing my style.