In France it's "la rentrée" where the children go back to school and sporting clubs resume normal activity. Although we had a few classes over the summer that were really aimed at 2nd and 3rd Dan Kata, I was looking forward to normal classes twice a week with a view to making good progress towards my blue belt.
Unfortunately I hurt my back at work lifting a generator into the back of the van and the disks pressing on my sciatic nerve caused a lot of pain and discomfort meaning I missed the first two weeks back.
Having gone back to karate this week, I found that although it was hard work and tiring due to my absence, the training is helping a lot with my back pain and is helping to loosen up the stiff muscles in my lumbar region.

There are many reasons why people start karate, they may want to keep fit, they may be looking for a hobby, self defense, socialising, or they have simply been fascinated by the whole history and mysticism surrounding karate and the martial arts.

Most people, in my experience, are not very fit when they start karate, fitness seems to be one of the main attractions, for a lot of people.

When a karate-ka (a karate practitioner) has been training for a certain amount of time, they will sometimes, naturally, supplement their karate practice, it may be running, swimming, cycling, weight training, etc, etc. Of course, there will be senior karate-ka who only practice karate and nothing else. But these karate-ka are normally very serious and are practicing five and more classes each week. But what of the person who only trains once or twice each week?

Everybody’s different, some karate-ka like high kicks, some like low kicks, but which one is better?

Tae kwon do, perform very high kicks, that are fast and powerful, some karate groups only practice kicking below the belt and some practice both high and low kicking.

I believe it’s all down to the individual involved. I personally wouldn’t recommend high kicks in self defence, but then again, I’m sure there are people who do recommend high kicks.

Really, it doesn’t matter what someone says or doesn’t say, because when it comes to self defence, you will do, whatever you practice! So if you practice head kicks, day in day out, there’s a high chance, that if you kicked whilst defending yourself, in a self defence situation, the kick will probably target the head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GWlJMSAlu4

my favorite way to stretch....adds inches to range of motion......

if you look up on youtube you will find more examples...

any other karate ka do this type?