Basic Stance of Koden Kan Martial Arts

Series Summary

The martial arts enjoy a long history as a way of fighting and self-defense, a philosophy, and a spiritual tradition of understanding the world around us. They are therefore abundant with forms, strikes, blocks, kicks, movements, and positions, all of which imply some idea about the nature of the body, the condition of society, and the essence of humanity. One of the many branches of martial arts, karate is widely held to have originated in Okinawa, just like the “Karate Kid” told you. It is the form of the “empty hand,” with no weapons but mind, body, and spirit. Over the years, karate has drawn on many influences, both technical and cultural, that make it what it is today.

Koden Ken karate, a style created by our instructor’s father, Michael M. Foley, continues that tradition. Koden Ken incorporates influences from Callejo karate, Shoto-Kan, Kyokushin Kai, Ju-jitsu, and Aikido. In this free video series, our karate instructor will teach you the basics of Koden Ken karate, including the starting stance, blocking, punching, kicking, and even some self-defense techniques, demonstrated with a partner. Take a giant leap into the world of martial arts, or add to your existing knowledge, by practicing these moves to perfection.

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m Madison Warner, I’m a black belt in Karate and I studied Koden Kan Martial Arts and my father Michael M. Foley is the person who put the style together and I’m going to be showing you some of our techniques today. If you’d like to see more about us and our style you can go to h2hctc.com or my website is mellei.com. Also I want to make sure that everybody knows that you need to stretch before you do any kind of physical activity, I mean everyone should know that but also if you have any kind of health problems see a doctor first before you know you get started if anything. Okay today first of all I’m going to show you about stances, this is the root of I mean this is your center okay this is going to root you is what I was trying to say, the first stance is called kibadachi, you want to bend your knees a lot, you want your feet to be straight forward and you want to just sink in to the stance okay don’t worry about your hands for now just feel your muscles working, you want to keep your back nice and straight, okay keep your back straight and like I said you want to be nice and low with your knee so just focus on this for a little while, practice that, just stand there in your living room watching TV, watch your favorite show while you’re doing the stance, it’s going to really strengthen your legs. The next stance is called zenkutsu okay this is just basically forward stance and you should feel like you’re about to move forward, lean into your stance forward, again you want your knee right over your toes and your back leg is straight pushing you forward okay, from the side like this…you’ll feel that forward motion and your back foot isn’t completely straight forward it can be turned out slightly but not very much and again just practice on this for a while before you start the next thing. Alright so those are your two stances that we’re going to be working with."