You might remember when you had just begun learning the zenkutsu-dachi, I always said that your front foot should have the exterior blade facing straight forward – kind of a pigeon-toed position.  It probably seems like just another of the numerous rules  on position and posture that we ask you follow eh?  You may have thought, “What’s the big deal about my foot blade pointing in the direction I’m facing versus my big toe?”. In this video, Sensei Jessie Enkamp does a great job of describing the value of foot/knee/hip alignment and the reason why centered placement of weight on one’s feet is so important.

You might be interested in why our kumite practice is limited to pre-arranged five-step, three-step, and one-step kumite.  This is for your protection and safety, as the free-style kumite that your sensei’s constantly practiced in our younger days resulted in many unavoidable injuries for each of us (safety wasn’t as big a concern for karateka in the 1970s).  Although in the spirit of gambare (Japanese for “Keep fighting!”) we continued practicing while hurt, that’s not really appropriate for the HIS group.

To give you an idea of what a JKA style tournament kumite looked like back then, here’s a 1996 Shoto Cup finals match between Kokubun (Japan) and Sharpe (Canada).  The match runs from 12:30-16:30 mins in the video so just fast forward to the match.  They spend the first minute just moving around, trying to judge distance and measure the opponent.  Please note that Kokubun does not launch a single kick.  Instead, he relies on his fast and powerful lunging gyakuzuki, finally switching to a longer lunging oezuki that scores but makes overly strong contact and…ends up being disqualified.

If you’re still reading at this point (haha), you can take a glance at and compare that with the more modern kumite style from the World Karate Federation, which includes gloves, foot guards, and lots of continuous hopping in wide kibadachi-like stances.

I pray that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow and enjoy your dinner with family and friends (something we all missed during the last two years).