The Karate Kids at Ananya

Now since the Karate classes have gone serious, its time to share some of our efforts.



Thanks to Sensei Manjula (Sensei Ni Rei: bow to the Sensei)for her time with Team Asha volunteers and Ananya kids, this thing has now become a regular affair. Once the kids are back in full strength this will become all the more meaningful.

We all are now going to increase the intensity and train for our yellow belt exam some time by end of next month. We are going to increase endurance activity as well.


Karate is being used to convey to the kids that it is essentially a form of defense and some of the moves (especially in kata) requires one to remember/memorize and concentrate hard to understand and follow a regimen. This will also help the kids in improving their concentration and and help them stay focused. The focus of Sensei is to teach us all a mix of Sports karate and Street karate.

This has been a truly great start and we wish to continue this further and expect more kids at Ananya will benefit from it.


All our Saturday runs end with a feast from Shivamma's kitchen. The breakfast there in that setting is just perfect. Thanks to Shivamma for all her effort and perseverance to feed us all!

Thanks to Vinodh, our bard, who is helping out kids with Word Processing for their exams.

Go Team Asha Go !
Aregato ! Keep running !

More Pics at: http://picasaweb.google.com/balsubu/AnanyaKarate#

Ananya Training Update

So we are going right on track with the training for the Sunfeast 10K even though most of the kids have gone home for vacation. We have given them schedules and have asked them to follow the training program to their best of abilities.

Karate Update:

Sensei Ni Rei (bow to the Sensei)
Dojo Ni Rei (Bow to the class/training hall)

We also learned lot of new moves in Karate over the last few weeks, thanks to Sensei Manjula. We've imbibed the first "Kata", the simulated fight.

We have learned the three punches (Tsuki) (Gedan, chudan and nidan), three front kicks (Ma Giri), one side kick (Yoko Giri) and one back fist punch(Uraken)

Couple of blocking techniques as well.
As it goes we will now be ready in couple of weeks for the first belt, the "yellow" belt !


Volunteer Activity Update:
After the training Vinod helped the kids in preparing for their "Word Processing" exam due this April 29, 2009.

Santosh and I had a talk with Sashi on future activity for Ananya kids and Sashi taught us something wonderful about "Möbius strip". Interesting, do read about it in the Wiki below and also about its unique properties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip

Watch out this space for more information. Until then keep running !

Karate - Empty Hands

As part of our runs with kids at Ananya we have started to train for Karate as a cross training activity. Karate means - Empty Hands.

Sensei Manjula, who is also a Team Asha runner will be guiding us through some important basic sessions in karate. In this first session last Saturday we got to know about the true essence for what Karate stands for. The idea is to use it as a tool of self-defence and having to attain greater control over oneself.

Some basic forms of karate like kata (simulated fight) and kumite (the actual fight) were described and then some basic punches.


# Jodan - Upper
# Chudan - Middle
# Gedan - Lower

By the way punch is called Tsuki. Gedan, chudan and nidan become the adjectives (Upper, middle, lower).

A blocking technique and finally mixed all of them with a three step forward punch and block routine. They all may sound simple but it ain't that way !

More to come ! So do join our Ananya runs !
Go Team Asha Go !