Gasshuku

[ize88]

This spring I am going to my first Gasshuku with my Karate Club and a bunch of other clubs.
Can some one tell me what to expect at one of these?

[complete]

What is Gasshuku,, for the non-Karate practitioners?

[souldrum71]

Gasshuku is a Japanese term for a type of intensive training camp. It usually involves the students spending their entire time eating, sleeping, and training in the dojo. Gasshuku can be a single day long or they can be as long as a week or a month.

[ize88]

sorry i haven't replied sooner computer was down for a while.

The gasshuku was the hardest workout i have ever done. It lasted 3 days. It left me sore for three days afterward.

before breakfast we all worked out for an hour. We did basic blocking and punching exercises. Everything had to be perfect. For punishment we had to do 10,000 kick drill. It's squat,kick with left leg then squat kick with right leg. We probably did 200 of those on the first day. Those are leg killers. Did this every morning.

After breakfast we went to the river to work on our stances and stepping. Sanchin stance was the one we worked on most. many times I fell and the water was cold. Kicks in fast moving water was the cause of most of the falls. Did this for 2 days. These lasted about 30 minutes each and did about 8 of them.
On the 2nd day we work on some takedowns in the river. I was the lowest ranking person there my knowledge of the takedowns is limited.

On the last day everyone went to the gym and we prepared for our belt tests. The drills in the gym focus on shiko dachi or, horse stance. Doing that for an hour gets painful. The higher ranking dans helped us kyus work on our testing areas giving us last minute pointers and pointing out everything you are doing wrong. For my belt test i did kata gekisai daini, the bunkai for gekisai daini, sanchin kata, and a kiso.
I passed and got to 6th kyu.

Everyone there also told me this was one of the easiest gasshukus they had been to. Can't wait for next year.

[Chapel]

Although I am happy that you enjoyed yourself (that is enjoyed in the most masochistic sense) I would like to remind you that it is possible to over train and rob yourself of many of the benefits of working out. At a certain point you start cheating with your exercises and develop bad habits. If you watch a lot of those Navy SEALs specials on TV you can see where they cheat on things like dips. At that point it seems to be mostly about hazing or otherwise 'proving your toughness/loyalty' and not about actually making physical gains.

Hmm... before I start ranting about hazing in martial arts...

I guess the major point I am trying to say is that you shouldn't rely solely on the Gasshuku to make you a physically fit martial artist. Rather that is up to you by learning about nutrition and workout routines and then applying them in your daily life.

[ize88]

i think the biggest thing i learned from it is some mental toughness. Every morning i wanted to quit but I didn't want to do it.
In our normal class they are 2 hours long, 2-3 times a week, and we work mainly on our form and in the beginning have a 15 minute warmup/workout.