We are now studying Bassai-sho in our Saturday classes. Bassai-sho is a derivative of Bassai-dai, which is very old. Versions of Bassai-dai are practiced by people in various styles of Karate. Bassai-sho was created in the late 19th century and shares many techniques and strategies with its predecessor kata. Bassai-sho is generally introduced at black […]
Sensei Eyal Nir will be teaching at Silicon Valley Karate on Saturday, April 30, and Sunday, May 1, both 2-4pm. But the two sessions will be very different: Saturday, April 30, 2-4pm: BuDo-Way. This is a seminar/workshop focused on using tools found in martial arts training for applications in business and personal life. (high school […]
We are now studying Bassai-dai in our Saturday classes. This kata is very old and versions of it are practiced by people in various styles of Karate. Older versions may go by the name ‘Patsai” and the -dai suffix was added when a secondary version (-sho) was created a little over 100 years ago. More […]
The Shinkyu Shotokan tournament on April 10 was the first (apart from just our dojo) in over 2 years. We had 11 competitors representing our dojo and all but one only took part in kata. Partial list of results (just those in top 3 for their event): Individual Kata:Louise 2ndUta 3rdNovely 2ndKeira 3rdArman 3rdBrent 3rd […]
We are now studying Jitte (十手) in our Saturday classes. Jitte is also sometimes written as “Jutte.” The characters used are those for 10 (“Ju”: 十) and hand(s) (“Te” : 手). This could imply that we have the ability to fight off 10 opponents. But it could also have something to do with the defensive […]
We are now studying Jiin (慈陰) in our Saturday classes. You can see a very good example of JKA’s Ogura Sensei doing the kata here. Quite similar to last month’s kata, Jion, Jitte features relatively basic techniques and stepping patterns. In fact, it is believed that the reason it was dropped from the official JKA […]
We are now studying Jion (慈恩) in our Saturday classes. You can see very good examples of people from the JKA doing the kata here and here. And here is part 1 of 3 of Yahara Sensei teaching Jion details. This is a relatively “basic” kata for advanced practitioners. It is composed almost entirely of […]
Our annual “Shotokan Kata Review” is coming up on January 8th (Saturday), 8-10am. We will go through 27 traditional Shotokan kata, twice each. And if time permits we will review additional kata. This is a great opportunity to discover (or re-discover) the breadth of the traditional Shotokan kata syllabus. Sensei Jon Keeling has been running […]
Join us! We are raising money for charity – this year for Mully Children’s Family (see below). During the week of December 10-16, we did kicks – LOTS of them… For the entire week, we held kick-a-thon events in all youth classes, building up to the finale on Thursday evening. In that 7pm class, we […]
