Interview

This meme has been circulating the internet for a while now. Here are the rules if you'd like to play:
1. Leave me a comment saying "Interview Me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the questions and answers.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to interview readers in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

This interview is by Supergroup. Thank you Supergroup.

1. Which kata is your favorite and why?
I don’t really have a favorite right now. I only know four kata, which are Gekisai Dai Ichi, Gekisai Dai Ni, Saifa, and Seiyunchin. It’s probably Seiyunchin though because it’s long and it doesn’t have any kicks. I don’t know all the details to it yet because I’m still working and trying to prefect Saifa. If any of you don’t know what Saifa and Seiyunchin looks like, here are some links that will show my Sensei performing them.
Saifa - http://www.spokanekarate.com/kata/saifa.php
Seiyunchin - http://www.spokanekarate.com/kata/index.php

2. Do you do any other sports, or hobbies than karate?
I ski during the winter. However, since we moved from Anaconda, Montana, I haven’t skied as much as I would have liked. Last winter, I skied around five times. I was spoiled with Discovery Basin in Montana because it was a half hour away from Anaconda, it was cheap, we had our own little shack since my mom taught skiing, and the runs were fabulous because they had to very easy (green) to expert (double diamond). I normally skied the diamonds that didn’t have any moguls. My mom still needs to teach me how to ski moguls because I’m terrible at it. I’m afraid that I’ll lose control, go flying over a mogul, and won't be able to stop myself from sliding down the hill because it’s very steep.

I love reading. My favorite books are the Tennis Shoe Series and Harry Potter “The Prisoner Azkaban” and “Goblet of Fire”. Right now, I’m reading The Work and the Glory, “A Season of Joy” by Gerald N. Lund. It’s part of a fictional series that deals with LDS history. I love the series because I get to learn about what my ancestors went through and because I gain a deeper testimony of Joseph Smith. In addition, I get to put all the stories that I read or heard over the years in chronological order.

3. What was the biggest lesson you learned when you competed in your last karate tournament?
Never ever borrow sparring equipment from the dojo. It was a pain because they didn't have any feet protectors my size. I don't have to worry about that any more because I finally have my sparring equipment.

4. Will you be learning how to use a weapon in Goju karate? If not, is there a Martial arts weapon that you would be curious about, and want to learn?
Since Institute was moved to Wednesdays, I’m going to start attending the weapons class on Tuesdays. Next, month we are going to learn about the kai (oar). One time, I attended a weapons class that taught me that basics of the Bo.

5. Do you have a pet? Would you want one?
My family has a cat named Miss Piggy. When we first got her, we call her Digit but changed it to Miss Piggy because she loves to eat. When she lived with us on the farm in Three Forks, Montana, and in Anaconda, Montana, we fed the right amount of food; although she complained about it a lot because she always meowed at us wanting to be fed. She didn’t complain to us kids a much as she did to my dad. He’d get up in the middle of the night or the early hours in the morning because Miss Piggy would sit at my parent’s door and meow. She rarely did that to my door because she knew that I would not feed her.

Now, Miss Piggy lives at my Grandma’s house. Grandma over feeds her pets so Miss Piggy and her dog, Missy, are over weight. It was fun having Miss Piggy live with us because she’s such a character. She’s loud, talkative, thinks that she’s a dog, and always wants to be around people. I would like to have a cat when I’m older. I may get a dog also; however, it must be well trained because I don’t want some dog that tears up my yard and my house.

My Mission and My Autism

These thoughts have been milling around my brain today and I want to write about them. I have Autism and Attention Deficit Disorder. My A.D.D. doesn’t affect me much because I took myself off Ritalin a year ago. However, my Autism is still affecting and will affect me my whole life. What’s so frustrating is that I don’t know how much it affects me and how much different I am from the norm. I don’t even know what is a normal person. I think that everyone is different in his or her own little ways. Then, why do I stand out from other people?

I’m writing about this because it just got in the way of me going on my mission. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to go on my mission. I mostly want to go because I want to get the benefits that result on going on a mission. I want to grow closer to Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost. I want to recognize the difference between my thoughts and the Holy Ghost’s promptings. I want to help to build up the Kingdom of God. Now, because of my Autism I can’t go.

More than a month ago, I saw a counselor that was recommended by my family’s bishop. He asked me many weird questions like, “What does your tears mean?” when I got upset. I thought that the missionary evaluation went very well because I didn’t see any problems with me going on a mission. Last week, the counselor and my family’s bishop recommended to my bishop that I shouldn’t go on my mission. Therefore, last Sunday my bishop said that I can’t go on a full time mission and I can be a ward missionary instead. I cried all day because it was such a major blow. Now, I want to go back and talk to my bishop tomorrow and ask why they recommended me that I shouldn’t go on a mission. My parents have always told me that I can do any thing in the world if I wanted to. Going on a mission is one of those things I want to do.

I know that my bishop can receive revelation from Heavenly Father for me. Did he honestly pray to Heavenly Father that I should go on a mission? If he did and God said no, I wouldn’t question his answer. The way that I see it, is that I can go on a mission, it’s just God doesn’t want to me go when I’m young. If my bishop didn’t and just accepted the advice from the other bishop and counselor, I’m going to question it until I see valid reasons for their decision.

Right now, I’m somewhat leery of the counselor. I know that he evaluated me to see if I can go on my mission or not. However, is an hour enough time to make that decision? I’m leery towards the counselor because of an experience. When I was a senior in high school, I took a standardized test to see how well I was going to do in college by a psychologist. In his evaluation, he said that wouldn’t be able to graduate with a four-year degree because I wasn’t going to do well in college. I think he said that I’m going to be horrible in math because I had him constantly repeat the numbers that I had to repeat back to him. All I remember is that he defiantly miss-evaluated me. Therefore, the person that had me evaluated said that I shouldn’t pursue my pre-vet education and said that I should pursue a degree in accounting or radiology. I proved them wrong because I’m not having any problems in school. In addition, I have taken hard classes like chemistry and calculus. Right now, my GPA is 3.67.

I don’t know if my family’s bishop should have any say because he doesn’t even know me. There is a guy who has Autism who’s around the same age as me in his ward. From what I heard from my family, I know he’s worse that me. Is the bishop basing his recommendation from what he knows from that guy? I hope not because Autistics can be very different from each other.

I’ll never know why Heavenly Father gave me Autism. In the Book of Mormon, in Ether 12: 26-27 God said: “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. Behold, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith, hope and charity bringeth unto me—the fountain of all righteousness.” I know Heavenly Father will help me with my weaknesses and make them strong in His own due time. If He helped me in school, He’ll help me with my Autism.

Blue Belt

I was awarded a blue belt last Friday, which means that I'm officially a 6th kyu in my dojo. I don't really consider this a promotion because I was already a 6th kyu in my old dojo. All along I considered myself much better than the green (7th kyu) and blue belts. However, I'm not as good as the purple belts (5th kyu). I thought I was better because I knew more kata than they did. Green belts were just learning Saifa. I already mastered that until Sensei led me through it and taught me all of the little details. However, they know bunkai and spar better than I.

I knew that I was going to test next month. Three weeks ago, I talked to Sensei Jen that I don't know when I'm going to test and probably it won't be for a long time. Sensei overheard and said that I was going to test next month because I need to get moving along. So, I went to the testing for April because I wanted to train in the atmosphere that I'll be testing in next month. I really like testing days because it's like my old dojo. We keep doing techniques repeatedly until Sensei tells us to stop. By the end of testing, I’m tired and sweaty. I’m never like that in a normal class.

Brain Man

Here's a seires of vidoes that really captivated me.

The tournament

I liked this tournament much better than the last one. Probably, I enjoyed better because it was smaller and I participated in it. I did alright. In my kata division, two green belts, a blue belt, and a purple belts. I went first and preformed Saifa because I worked on and improved it the night before. I beat a lady and won third place. My Sensei said that judges like to score conservative for the first person. For some reason, I went first in all three of my divisions.

My sparring is a different story. I don’t have sparring gear yet. Therefore, I had to borrow some from the dojo. I’m NOT going to do that ever again because they didn’t have feet pads that fit. I had to put on these things that were way too small. My feet wanted to burst out of them and be free. When I was looking for gear, they called of me first and so they had to wait for me to put the gear on. Thankfully, the head judge helped me put on my gear on because I was having trouble with it especially those feet pads.

My point sparring match was terrible. All of my training went out of the window. I reverted back to attacking with both hands instead of doing combos. I didn’t help that I didn’t know that it was a point sparring match until after the match. I know that we were tied at the end of it because of the helpers said next point wins. So, I wasn’t doing that horrible and could have gone forward. However, I lost to a white belt and was a runner up. After the match, Nyles came up to me and said don’t use two hands to attack, use combos.

My continuous match was much better. I sparred with a blue belt that was pretty good. The second half during the match actually started using my head. I know that one point I came in threw some stuff and backed out without her punching my vital areas. During the match, I did get a warning for contact. Of course she beat me; however; she beat a purple belt too. Therefore, I won third place too. After the match, Cory said that I lost because I needed more control.

A little nervous

I’m going to participate in my first tournament tomorrow. I went to a tournament before; however, I didn’t participate. I was going to do kata but I totally missed my division. Tomorrow, I’m going to do kata, point sparring, and continuous sparring. I’m nervous about sparring because I haven’t done it with the full gear yet and I’m not good. I hope that my sparring gear comes in today for the tournament tomorrow. If it doesn’t, I have to borrow from somebody. What am I going to do for a mouth guard because I can’t borrow that? I asked Sensei if I could be in the beginners sparring because I don’t spar. However, he said no and that I had to be in the intermediate.

I was planning on not participating because the last tournament got boring. It wasn’t worth 35 dollars just to do a single kata. It didn’t help that I had four or five hours of sleep that night. I hate being that tired because I’m so sensitive and emotional. This time, it will be better because it’s going to be here in Spokane. It only cost me 25 dollars and my school is hosting it. Plus, many members of my dojo are participating.

I’m going to do Seiyunchin for my kata. I like it the best because it’s the longest and it doesn’t have any kicks. However, I hardly practice it and I only know the basic jist of it. I don’t know all the details that I know for the Gekisai kata and for Saifa. At the end of class last night, everyone did their kata tournament style two at a time. The girl next to me did a Gekisai kata while I did Seiyunchin. Therefore, all the dojo watched my kata because Seiyunchin is a lot longer than a Gekisai kata. I was a little nervous before I went up. However, there wasn’t that mental block that I had when throwing the disk. I did pretty well; however, I forgot a kiai.

I like my kiai the best out of the girls. Nicole, who’s a black belt, sounds like a little yapping dog when she kiais. The kiai of other girls sound way do deep for them. In this dojo, we kiai Eee I Eee instead of EHHH! I mostly do EHHH when kiai out of habit. I don’t know if EHHH or Eee I Eee is better for a kiai.

Self-defence

This is going to be short because I need to go to bed. Today, we did self-defense in our street clothes today. I paired up with Nyles a 1st kyu who’s about the same size as me. When we first paired up, Sensei wasn’t sure about me pairing up with him; but he said that I could hit hard. First, we worked on kicking at the knee with a sidekick. Then, we worked on elbows. While training, he said that he’s sorry for the person if he or she attacks me. That was the coolest complement. Maybe I can defend myself if someone attacks me. However, I need to have a quick mind and be committed because I don’t want them attacking back when I start. I felt the punches and kicks of my fellow karate mates with the body bag. I’ll tell you that if one of them actually hits me hard, that would hurt and stun me. If anyone attacks me, I would use palm heel, knee, and elbow strikes. My palm heel strike is much harder than a regular punch. My elbow strike is one of my most powerful strikes too. I don’t think that I would use any kicks because they would be useless. I would kick them and bounce off because I’m off balance. That wouldn’t be good. The only kick that I would use is to the back of the knee when I get around to their back.

When we were done working with the bags, we got into groups of threes to work on defending another person from an attacker. I was hoping I was going to stay with my group because of Nyles and Andrew; however, Sensei switched me to another group that had a green belt and a white belt. We first worked on our posture when telling a person that we didn’t want any trouble. Then if he attacked, I would grab him in the throat, punch him in the head, knee him a couple times, and elbow him to the base of the skull. While I did this with the green belt whose male, I accidentally kneed him in the groin. He didn’t go down or anything like that, he just stood there with is hands on his knees waiting for the pain to subside. Good thing it wasn’t full power because he would have dropped like a sack of potatoes.

After class, I found out that my nerves are retarded because some of the pressure points in the arm don’t work on me. There’s a spot where one rubs across a tendon. Sensei rubbed there so I can feel it; however, it hurt a little but now enough to where I would jump and squirm. Then, Sensei Jen tried another pressure point just behind the elbow; however, I didn’t feel anything what so ever.

Kickboxing and The Conversation

Hi. I realized that kickboxing is going to be really basic with the kicking and punching. Why am I taking this class? I thought it was going to be interesting and fun. It may get better but I don’t know. Why do we have wraps because I know some of the students weren’t properly taught how to wrap their hands? We’re not going to punch with them either. It’s an OK workout but, I’m afraid it will get repetitive.

I finally saw Sensei walking out of the gym on the outside. I don’t think he saw me. He was wearing his gi and his light grey vest. I was going to a route that would pass him; however, I avoided it and took another route instead. Then, I talked to an acquaintance about karate in the locker room because she was taking it. I told her that I already took that class for two quarters and that Sensei went bad on me. I told her that she was learning Goju-Ryu and the kata she’s going to learn. She said that she didn’t know that she was going to come back to the first week because Sensei is very gruff and roar. That’s very typical. Now, he was nicer today. I told her that Sensei always nicer at SCC than in the dojo. Then, she asked me what a dojo was. I told her that it’s a place were one learns and practices karate. Then, she asked me that the card that he gave her was to his dojo. I said yes. She thought it was to his restaurant. This is a typical conversation I have with starting students; but, this was more in depth.

My Purse

Last night we had a Ladies Night, which means that we were taught basic self-defense with purses and keys. If a man grabs me on my arm, I can smack him in the face with my purse and stop down on his foot. However, I never carry a purse except when I go to church. Probably, I would break something if I hit a man with full force with my purse because it contains my scriptures. I always carry my backpack around for school so this lesson didn’t really apply to me.

I would have written more; however, I finally found out how to download music from Magnatune.com. Now, it’s time to go to bed.

Punching with wraps

This morning was my first kick boxing class. It’s going to be a watered down class because it’s more for fitness and it’s only for 45 min.

First, why do we have to wear wraps? The internet says that it’s to protect your tendons and bones in your hands. However, why did we wear them today because we didn’t hit anything with them? The girls who came back say that it feels weird to not punch without the wraps because they becomes like gloves to them. With me, I think that they are alright, but they are unnecessary. I wouldn’t want to hit anything with them because I can’t properly make a fist and I can’t see where my first two knuckles are.

After class, I wanted to practice on the stand up punching bags; however, my instructor stopped me because of liability reasons. First, she said that I cannot punch the bag without wraps or even punching mitts. I don’t agree with that. Even though I have limited experience with punching bags, I know that I can punch it with my bear hand. I have can’t go all out because I don’t want to hurt them. The point is that I have control. Maybe, many people get injured on the bags because they don’t have any control and don’t know what their limits are. Second, she said that I couldn’t even kick it because she hasn’t taught me yet. On Tuesday, I told her that I’m in karate and I’ve been in it for over a year. Maybe she forgot. I don’t think that will help because of the stupid liability issues.

All I want is for kickboxing to overlap with karate. I want this to help me with sparing because I need to work on throwing punches from a fighting stance and a guard. I need help with combos too. In class today, we learned to wrap our hands which I got lost with her instruction. I learned better when I was on the internet. Then, we learned to do the jab and cross with music. Then, we worked on pivoting and slipping a little. After that, we did some stretching. Then, we tested our selves on how many push ups and sit ups we can do. I did 50 sit ups and 25 girl push ups. I received a very good rating. I was quite well pleased because I did better than my partner and I didn’t expect that rating.

My Old Sensei

I’m taking kickboxing this quarter. I found out that I have a good chance of seeing my old Sensei because karate was moved to 8:30 to 9:30. That’s OK because I’m very happy with my new dojo. If we spoke to each other before I joined my new dojo, I don't know what would have happened. Probably, I would have been sucked into his dojo again. I missed my old dojo greatly because of the training and hardcoreness. Every time, I would have to remind myself of how badly they treated me. Now if I did one class in his dojo, I think that I'll run away because I like my new dojo too much. I would hate to stand there for a half hour stiff as a board watching the black belts do kata. It would have been so much more productive if the lower belts were allowed to work on other things because one can only learn so much just by watching. On the other hand, I'm glad that I watched because I learned what all the kata looks like.

I talked to my Sensei about him. Sensei said that Chinen doesn't like to correct his students. He demonstrates how bad they are and that exaggerates how good he is because only he is doing the technique correctly. Therefore, we grovel and worship at his feet because he’s a good Sensei and we’re bad students. Sensei Chinen didn’t explain anything. He didn’t explain how a technique in a kata would apply in a real world situation. After nine months of training, I still didn’t know how to protect myself even though he said that he taught self defense. Sensei Chinen didn’t explain and teach me all the fine details of Saifa. He just expected me to copy his movements and don’t ask any questions. That’s not a good way to learn because one learns more if he or she can ask questions.

I wonder if Sensei Chinen is going to say anything to me when he sees me. If he does, I would like to tell him that he taught me Gekisai Dai Ichi and Gekisai Dai Ni all wrong. LOL. I know he didn’t teach wrong because it’s his own style; however, he says that’s how his teachers before him taught them. I don’t believe him because even his own students say that he changes kata over time.

Sliding and testing

Right now, I’m working on the Gekisai Dai Ichi and Ni because I need to work out all of the details which I wasn’t taught. First, I work on sliding my feet when I perform any kata or any drills. Once we were sliding sideways and went the opposite direction on each count. Sensei was telling us to keep our feet on the floor and slide. However, I always lift my lead foot when I slide because my foot sticks. So, when I was trying to keep my foot on the floor and slide, I fell over because my foot stuck. This week, I’ve been trying to figure out why my foot always sticks. I think it’s because I put too much weight on my lead foot when I slide. I also found out that it’s easier to slide when I have my knees bent. In my old dojo, I know they slide; however, Sensei didn’t specifically tell me to slide. So, I always lifted my feet instead because it wasn’t emphasized.

I’m getting better at karate slowly but surely. I thought that I would have already tested and get my current kyu or one higher. Just recently I finally figured out why I haven’t tested yet, it’s because I need to work on my Gekisai kata and learn the bunkai. I know that if I stayed with my old dojo, I’d be 5th kyu or higher by now. However, I trust my new Sensei because I’ve seen the difference between his black belts and Chinen’s black belts. Gene Villa’s brown belts are like black belts to me. I know that his black belts perform kata better than Chinen’s new and high black belts. I know that Sensei Chinen promoted his students way too fast. Probably, he promoted me too fast too.

My weight

I have more time to write now because I broke up with Andrey. I have been on the Internet much more because of calorie-count.com. It's a site where I count my daily calories. It tell me what foods are healthy and unhealthy, which is a major plus because a lot of times, I don't know whether a food is healthy or not. For example, I ate a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich which we get from Costco. I typed it in and it received a big, fat F. I had no idea that it was that unhealthy for you. If I would have known that I would have eaten some thing else. In a week and a half, I've lost 6 pounds. Now, I'm 184. I know I'm a little overweight because 35% of my weight is body fat. So, I hope that I can get that percentage down. A personal trainer said that it doesn't do any thing if we just work one type of muscle to lose the fat. To lose fat, we need to exercise more and eat less. Well, I have been doing that. I think I ate way too much during Gassuku because I gained ten pounds. My Sempai kept on telling me to eat during the breaks. I thought that I would have lost some weight because of the amount of exercise that I did. When I gained 10 pounds, I thought it was muscle instead of fat. Maybe it was some muscle, but mostly fat. This makes sense that my friend exercised a lot but was still overweight. It was because she ate way too much.

Look at my new home

Ahh, much better! Yesterday, it looked this blog http://mokurendojo.blogspot.com/; however, mine was a little better. I ended up changing my template from Scribe to Harbor. I like this template the best because I haven't seen anybody using it before and it looks original. I wanted my blog to look different because Supergroup, Becky, and Miss Chis uses Scribe too. To make it look more different, I changed the font to Arial instead Trebuchet. All of the other fonts are too sharp and blocky for me.

I don't know if I like this...

I wanted to update my blog, because I noticed that some of my links were bad. When I wanted to update, I chose to update my template. However, I didn't save my old template, so I had to start from skratch. Now, I don't know if I like what I have any more. The colors are off, there is a big space under blogs on the side bar, and the titles are underlined which looks tacky. I'm thinking about changing the whole template, so it will look better. I would play with it now, but I have been on the web and playing with it long enough. I need to do homework, go home, and go to karate. Aggg, I think I spent way too much time on the web because I don't know if there is enough time to do these three things. What should I do, do homework or go to karate? Hummmm...

Too Easy

I didn't realize that it had a been a month since I have wrote. Last night was the first time going to karate class in two weeks. It was really nice to be back; however, afterwards I was making comparison between it and my old dojo. I really miss the hard coreness of my old dojo. I want a Sensei that will really push my physically and mentally, like my old Sensei. I think that we spend to much time stretching and not enough on kata. Andrew commented that our classes were too easy because more than half the class were teenagers to Sensei Jen. She got a little mad and said that our thighs would burn at the end of class because we were in Zenkutsu dachi. However, my thighs would never burn in Zenkutsu dachi because we don't go to deep. If we were in Shiko dachi, that would be a different story. Sorry that I'm complaining. I just miss that good work out that comes from karate.

Fighting

Class was wonderful today. First, I thought I wasn’t going to class; however, I was woken up by a phone call by the missionaries. They asked me if I could participate in the missionary discussion with Andrey. Last time, I wasn’t there because he asked me not to for an unknown reason. When I got up, I had an hour to get ready. I was a little late because I had more things to do than usual because I thought I wasn’t going back to my house after karate.

When I arrived there, I realized that I forgot my card that I had to run under the scanner that records that I was at class today. The class was the smallest that I’ve been to because it had only four people including me. It ended up that I wasn’t late because we were still waiting for Villa Sensei. We first started by punching the target bags. My partner made me take off my sterling silver ring when we started. I put it on top of a wall that’s about wait high. I knew I was going to forget it and I did. I hope no one steals it on Monday. I really want it back because Andrey gave it to me when we first started dating. I miss it too because I wear it almost 24/7.

I need start focusing on punching with my first two knuckles with the target bags. I don’t bend my wrists when I punch; therefore, I hit my first middle knuckles. The first time I worked time when I worked with target bags, my middle index knuckle on my left hand became raw. Today, none of them became raw. However, my middle index finger on my right hand is a little tender when I rub it.

I learned that Sensei Chinen didn’t teach me how to fight. He didn’t teach me to protect my head, to jab, or to cross. During a sparing exercise, I remember a white belt using boxing techniques, Sensei disapproved of his fighting because he wasn’t fighting the way traditional way or the way he wanted him to. I remember that we could have used any technique. In the Northwest Profiles video, one can see that Sensei Chinen fights with his hands down at the waist level instead of protecting his head. When ever a person would tell me that I could hurt them because I knew karate, I knew that wasn’t true. I knew that I couldn’t defend myself against anyone with Sensei Chinen teachings.

I would write more, but it's way too late. Spent too much time watching vidoes. Note: Today is still Saturday because I haven't gone to bed yet.

Differences in Gekisai kata

I liked class today in karate. It was a small class today like last week. Yesterday, we had a lot more people. Is it because of the sparring class? Maybe nobody like to train in kata. I personally would like to work on kata more than we have been. However, we worked on Bunkai that I have only done once under Chinen Sensei. It's the attack and defend in a straight line Bunkai for Gekisai Dai Ichi. When I did it at my old dojo, I remember being better than my fellow Sempai Kurk because he couldn't remember what happens next. A few times I think I swept kicked and he couldn't remember how to counter that. I remember Sempai Linda being gone that day, so in the next class, Sempai Brooke told her about the Bunkai that we worked on. Sempai Linda said that she hasn't worked on that Bunkai for five years. I noticed that in this dojo, not many people knew it either. I glad that I was pared up with Anna because she's a black belt and two years younger than me.

While I was doing the Bunkai, I learned a new stance called the Han Zenkutsu dachi which is Zenkutsu dachi but shorter. We use this stance with the beginning blocks in the Gekisai kata. In Chinen's dojo, we used Sanchin dachi. Plus, we use Han Zenkutsu dachi in Saifa when we high punch, Han Zenkutsu dachi, and turn 180 in Neko Ashi Dachi. When ever I get into this stance, I have to check myself if my feet are correctly far enough apart by kneeling with my back leg and lining my knee up with my toes on my other foot. They do the same thing with Zenkutsu dachi; however, the knee lines up with my heel. I noticed that's shorter than what I've been doing in Zenkutsu dachi. Chinen Sensei would have us get into a deep Zenkutsu dachi where it burned my lead thigh. Sometimes, he would call me a lazy girl and have me go deeper. That's not the case with this dojo.

I learned more differences in the Gekisai kata this week. After the second block in Shiko dachi, I was taught to step directly to sanchin dachi instead of going towards to my other foot. I noticed that's going to be hard to break because my arm and leg are used to moving in a circular motion at the same time. The double punch or Morote tsuki is different too. Chinen Sensei taught me just have the hands parallel to each other and have the arms fully extended. With this dojo, the hands are not parallel to each other. The lead hand is fully extending pointing a little down where the other hand isn't fully extending pointing a little up. This dojo doesn't breathe either in any of the kata except Sanchin and probably Tensho. So with these differences, I have to rework my Gekisai kata.