First of all, I sincerely apologize for a long silence. Since August I have been travelling a lot.
In the first week of August my husband and I went to Herford (NRW) and participated in Gasshuku 2011. One of my personal highlights of this Gasshuku was the keiko on Sôchin kata by Julian Chees Sensei. Sôchin is currently one of my tokui katas together with Nijû Shi Ho. On August 5th I successfully graded to sandan (3rd degree black belt). Osu!
The same day we returned to Freiburg and on the next day we went to one of my favorite places on this planet - town of Mandelieu-la-Napoule. I love Mediterranean sea! We had some great outdoor trainings there with the emphasis on Kankû Dai.
After being back to Freiburg I travelled to my native city of Novosibirsk (Akademgorodok to be more precise), where I enjoy my staying right now.
My kata training was included into the regular schedule. It had to be started already, but another teacher will run the training till I will be back. So, Friday, 20:00, kata training!
Kata is a very powerful training device, but only if you know how to use it. Bunkai and oyo are going to be the core parts of the training. As always I have a training plan already, but if someone wants to perfect his/her kata for an upcoming grading, then he/she is welcome to let me know. A training plan should never be stiff, but should adapt to the needs of the moment.
But I would like to emphasis the following: kata training should not be limited to the training in the dojo only. It is not enough to learn a kata once in the dojo and then do nothing till the next training. So, please practice yourself, try to remember the techniques and important points.
When I will be back to Freiburg and have access to our home library I will write here more posts about katas in a way I used to write: additional information and some notes.
I will publish an update on my personal teaching schedule later, when all the details will be clear. The general training schedule of the Freiburg dôjô can be found in the Training schedule section of the blog.
