22 hours of Karate goodness: Part One — Sensei Yabe…

This weekend marked one of the best karate experiences I have had in recent history. The day began bright and early at 4:15 am when my alarm rudely crashed me out of dreamland. and stayed at my place so they wouldn’t be horribly late, so we all got up and moving.

We arrived at the YWCA to the aforementioned caravan point at 5:10 or so, and off we went. We made a brief stop in Litchfield to get some snacks/coffee/etc before the major leg of the trip. I noticed that Sensei Hartman was not his boisterous self. I couldn’t say I blamed him, I was feeling the usual sympathy nerves that happen for anyone taking a dan test. The trip was mostly uneventful, Matt and I discussed the dojo and reminisced about our earlier days of training and how much we missed people like Sensei Jennings and how we missed having the extra time before and after classes to do extra karate stuff.

We were going to St. Louis to train with Sensei James Yabe. He was coming from California, and the only information I knew about him is that he has gotten rave reviews from anyone that had been lucky enough to train with him. The first of four planned sessions began at 9 am, and we arrived at the gym at 8:45 am or so.

The first session was primarily for children and lower ranks, however the black belts were allowed to work out in all sessions as “warm ups.” Sensei Yabe is a short Japanese man, who you may mistake for being about 40 if you look quickly enough. Upon closer inspection you can see lines of age. I suspect there are some lines of Karate awesomeness in there too. Either way, the first thing I noticed about him was how much he was smiling, as well as his blindingly fast hand speed.

During the first class he had us do some basic kihon, however he was focused very much on hip action. He had us do some drills involving proper use of the hips to gain connection. I had a minor lightbulb moment when he said that many people had the problem of stepping too far and then they felt out of timing when trying to tie their hips in. I found out this was my problem, and by the end of the day I felt at least 50% better about my hip rotation.

There were many unfamiliar faces this time around, I guess a larger contingent of Pennsylvania karateka came for the ride this time. During the second class, I had the good fortune of sparring with Sensei Scott from Pittsburgh, he was a pretty nice guy and had decent technique. I also got to spar with one of the guys from the ISU karate club that I had never met before. He also had good technique, and good control for a brown belt.

At one point during the second class we were doing sparring combinations, specifically two face level punches, followed by a front kick. Sensei Yabe walked in front of me and stopped for a minute to watch. He said “Yes, yes, yes… great!” and nodded his head before walking down the line to the next person. He appears to be very big on the individual hands-on approach to instruction. I think at some point he came around to everyone working out and made some correction or affirmation of their technique.

We went for a brief lunch at Jack in the Box, and then it was back for more. This time, it was kata for the intermediate ranks. We did several of the Heian kata, luckily this one was also treated as a warm-up for the black belts. Most of the scrutiny was on the colored belts at this time, which didn’t stop everyone from working their butts off. I can’t think of anything noteworthy that came from this one… except for the fact that halfway through I had fatigue set in the likes of which I can’t remember.

The last class for the day was advanced kata. Sensei Yabe said that he wanted to do about five black belt kata, but there was only time for one. He elected Nijyushiho, which interestingly enough was Sensei Hartman’s kata for the dan test later on that day. We got a LOT of quality instruction on this one, and I raelized that at some point my brain had picked up this kata and I was able to get completely through it on my own. Sensei Yabe proceeded to explain that this kata went through some iterations, in the beginning it was hard and fast and strong for every technique, and then it evolved into people “acting” through it (like Kabuki, he said). Finally, it settled on the current incarnation: a bit of a mix between the two.

In the end, we were surprised with an announcement… Sensei Yabe was joining the organization and had been promoted to 8th dan. He is going to fill the position of Technical Director. It is good to have down to earth, extremely talented people like him join the administration of our organziation. I was thrilled to hear this, mostly because it means he has reason to come back regularly.

I really enjoyed the different seminars for different reasons. I knew about lunchtime that this was going to result in ridiculous amounts of muscle pain, which is what I am living through right now. It was TOTALLY worth the time and money, I am going to make it a point to train with Sensei Yabe at every possible opportunity. I’m going to make sure Tasha doesn’t miss him the next time he comes too.