We did skills work last night at CrossFit Works on the clean and jerk. Two reps at the top of each minute for 15 minutes, for a total of thirty clean and jerks. Of course, I always do a split jerk because it reminds me of zenkutsu dachi (front stance).
During rests I walked through the moves of that most magnificent kata, Nijushiho, which means the twenty-one steps. Wonderful kata. I love the ageuki-empi (rising block-elbow strike) sequence followed by the slow, sweeping movement of the arm. I can still hear Nishiyama Sensei's voice in my head saying "go catch" as fifty of us would perform this sweeping movement in the Chicago dojo during one of his clinics. May God smile on the face of Hidetaka Nishiyama.
My power clean and jerks are getting better. Can't imagine clean and jerking almost 600 lbs. like Mr. Leonid Tarenenko did in the clip I linked to above. But I sure can do a front stance like he does, though my legs don't look like those tree trunks. And whenever I do Nijushiho I always say in my mind during the sweeping move, "go catch!"
I can't even imagine doing a clean and jerk with that much weight. Just riding it down into the squat made my hip joints ache! Yet I think such exercises really do make karate movesm ore powerful -- stronger core, greater shoulder and hip flexibility, and the abilities to explode with more powerful technique....all which we work on deliberately in crossfit.
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