Completing the Circle: Advanced Basics Sensei Evans’ Seminar and Dan Testing
The first part of the seminar was focused upon the pivot points during basic movements and techniques. After the warm up, Sensei Evans started us off with stepping back and forth in zenkutsu dachi (front stance). The amount of small but important detail that emerged was surprising: pivoting back foot on the ball when stepping forward, pivoting of the heel of the front foot when stepping backward, not moving the front foot at all until the termination of the movement, relaxation of the whole body during the movement until the final moment of kime at the end, and many other details. All this from a front stance drill! I wouldn’t have expected moving up and down in front stance to be so challenging. When Sensei Evans added hamne hip position to this exercise he pointed out that most people were wobbling their front knees sideways on each step, a habit to be stopped immediately. Then our guest instructor added oi tsuki (lunge punch) to the exercise, which brought up a host of new details: he focused on keeping the body a single unit by relaxing the tense punching arm during each step, allowing a fluid advance each time and creating more power from the hips. Making these small changes improved the speed and quality of the punching immediately, as well as allowing us to move more quickly in front stance. The second theme Sensei Evans worked on was hip movement: to do this, we went through basic blocks like age uke (head block), soto ude uke(outside block), gedan uke (down block) and others. He emphasized the use of preparatory movement in the blocks, but warned against holding the preparatory motion in one place, so that the motion remained fluid and fast. The hips were a key element here: we were told to include the hips in this motion, facing the opponent in shomen position and then counter-rotating into hamne position while blocking. We then went from kihon to kata, focusing on Heian Shodan and incorporating into it all the small detail previously covered during the seminar. The hip movement was applied in partner exercises working on the bunkai (application) of the first five techniques. These drills showed us the advantage of making preparatory movement with the hips as well as the arms, resulting in faster and more powerful counterattacks. The pivot points studied earlier were especially used in the spinning turns of the kata. Sensei Evans told us to focus on what specific technique we were performing on the imaginary opponent, keeping in mind the bunkai we had just gone over. In the last half hour of the seminar Sensei Evans moved the focus to kumite drills, but still working on hip movement. We worked on reverse punch stepping forward, putting our hip into each punch, which in turn helped make the step itself faster. Kizami tsuki (front jab) was added to the combination along with the instruction to do our best to hit the opponent, which emphasized the shifting forward motion on each punch, in fact when we went back to the original reverse punch drill, it was improved because of that shifting. Sensei Evans’s seminar was a great learning experience in which he showed us material that was not necessarily new, but taught in a different way. Changes of format like these allow us to gain a deeper understanding of concepts that we have seen before. This is why our seminars, in which dojo’s and Sensei’s train together, are such a valuable opportunity for learning. Most people probably did not deeply understand every concept which Sensei Evans explained, but if we can each understand just a few, that can mean a significant improvement in our Karate. All of us who participated in the seminar are very grateful to Sensei Evans for his teaching and were honored to train with him. The seminar came to an end, but the Dan test was still to come. After a brief break, we lined up for our test in front of examiners Sensei Kim and Sensei Evans. There were six of us, three testing for Shodan and three for Nidan. I felt very nervous, as we all did, and when I did my kihon routine it seemed to be over before it even started. The kata’s flew by as well, and then we came up for kumite: the intense spirit pervaded each round. There was no time for thought, just action and reaction and muscle memory, all driven by spirit. We performed well and by the end we were all exhausted, but we passed. After a tense five minute break, the examiners returned and we were given our new belts. With this new rank, however, came more responsibility to ourselves and to the dojo: The responsibility to train harder and better, to look for new material independently, and to help teach the kohi just as our sempai teach us, because with teaching comes greater understanding. Karate Do is a lifelong study, and this test marked the beginning of our journey. Ouss!
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On Saturday, December 12th, I had the honor of training with Sensei Brian Evans (6th dan). Sensei Evans brought some of his own students in addition to the large turnout from Japanese Karate-Do and the dojo was packed. There was a great range of ranks present, from 10th kyu to Nidan, so Sensei Evans started by explaining that the basics he would cover could be applied at all different levels of training.
