One of the most important elements of karate, is distance.
You need to have the distance between you and the person you are fighting just right, in order to deliver effective karate moves.
A good fighter always has excellent distance and timing, but we will not focus on timing, lets just concentrate on distance in this article.
Shotokan karate for beginners classes teach a very basic form of sparring, that is excellent for distance training. This kumite (sparring) is referred to as gohon (5 step) kumite or sanbon (3 step) kumite.
You face your sparring partner, bow (rei), then come to Yoi (ready position) in shizentai (natural stance).
When you are first learning karate, this is where you will adjust your distance. Simply extend one arm and touch your partner on the shoulder, with your arm straight.
This is a good starting position for basic sparring. The attacker will step back downward block (gedan barai) with the right leg and block gedan barai with the left arm. In this basic sparring exercise, you will step and attack oizuki (stepping punch), either 5 or 3 times, depending on the karate dojo you attend.
This is good distance training for both the attacker and defender.
Imagine the sun, a magnifying glass and a piece of paper. Once the sun, magnifying glass and a piece of paper are aligned correctly, the paper will burn! Your karate techniques are the same, there are lots of other elements involved, but distance is one of the main ingredients that will ensure the your karate techniques ‘burn‘ their intended target!
We will cover more on correct distance in part 2.
The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’
Lao Tzu