The structure of a class
A Karate Sunnyvale class runs about two hours. The structure is fixed enough that a student who has trained for a few years can feel immediately at home when returning after a long absence — the skeleton is always the same — but the content of each section varies by level, by who is teaching, and by what the class is working on. What follows is the skeleton.
Overview
| Section | Content | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-class | Clean the deck | 5 min |
| Bow in | Ceremony, seiza, bow to shinden, bow to sensei, bow to each other | — |
| 1 — Warmup (jun-bi undō) | Muscle warmup, stretching, jogging | 10 min |
| 2 — Cross decks (kihon undō) | Walking techniques across the floor | 23 min |
| 3 — Repetitions (kiso tanren) | Conditioning counts: blocks, kicks, punches | 25 min |
| Break | — | 5 min |
| 4 — Kata | Form practice | 30 min |
| 5 — Bunkai | Kata analysis, applied | 10 min |
| 6 — Kumite or blocking line | Paired practice | 10 min |
| 7 — Arm conditioning (kotegitai) | Forearm training | 5 min |
| Bow out | Ceremony | — |
Before class — cleaning the deck
Five minutes before the scheduled start, students clean the floor. This is not a gesture; it is the literal beginning of training. The dōjō is a shared space maintained by the people who use it, and cleaning is the first act of engagement. In some Okinawan dōjō, the senior students arrive early and clean before juniors arrive. Here, everyone cleans together.
Bow in
The ceremony that opens class follows a fixed sequence, conducted in seiza (正座, formal kneeling posture). The class lines up facing the sensei and the shinden (神殿, the shrine or altar). Rank determines position: the most junior student is front-left from the students’ perspective; the most senior is back-right. The sensei stands below the shinden, facing the class.
The sequence:
- The sensei turns and faces the shinden.
- Sensei calls seiza — everyone kneels.
- The senior student announces shinden ni taishite rei — bow to the shinden. Everyone bows, including the sensei.
- The sensei turns to face the class (remaining in seiza) and announces keiko hajimeru — “the lesson shall begin.”
- The senior student calls sensei ni rei — bow to the sensei. Everyone bows; as heads reach the floor, everyone says onegai shimasu.
- The sensei calls face each other (or pair up) — students turn to face a partner.
- The senior student calls otagai ni rei — bow to each other. Everyone bows; onegai shimasu again.
- Sensei calls face forward, then up — everyone stands and warmup begins.
The words matter. Onegai shimasu (お願いします) is often translated “please,” but the fuller sense is something like “I humbly enter this relationship for a good outcome — now and in the future.” It is said at the bow-in to sensei and to one’s partner; its counterpart at bow-out is arigatō gozaimashita (ありがとうございました), the past-tense formal “thank you” — “thank you for what has just passed between us.”
Shinden ni taishite rei means “bow with regard to the shinden” — a bow of respect to the tradition and its lineage rather than to any single person.
Section 1 — Warmup
Ten minutes of physical preparation, working roughly from large movements to smaller ones and from muscles to tendons:
- Leg squats — kusshin, half-squats with heels off the ground, then full squats
- Alternating leg raises at 45°, then straight ahead
- Neck rotations: side to side, up and down, lateral tilts, head rolls
- Trunk twists, side bends, forward bends, floor touch with lean-back
- Wide squat, alternating single-leg squat, seated splits and forward fold
- Light jog
The warmup is conservative in its demands. This is deliberate: the conditioning work comes later. The warmup’s job is to prepare the body to do that work without injury, not to be the conditioning work itself.
Section 2 — Cross decks (kihon undō, 基本運動)
Kihon undō means fundamental exercises. In practice, this means walking the length of the floor — “crossing the deck” — performing a technique or sequence of techniques with each step. The class moves back and forth across the floor in lines, the sensei calling techniques from the side or demonstrating at the front.
The standard cross-deck sequence covers sixteen techniques, working through the major stances and the techniques associated with each:
| # | Stance | Technique |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Neko-ashi-dachi | Step in cat stance |
| 2 | Neko-ashi-dachi | Front kick |
| 3 | Neko-ashi-dachi | Middle knife-hand block (chūdan shutō-uke) |
| 4 | Shizen-dachi | Middle punch |
| 5 | Shizen-dachi | Upper block (jōdan-uke) |
| 6 | Shizen-dachi | Reverse punch (gyaku-zuki) |
| 7 | Neko-ashi-dachi | Low knife-hand block (gedan shutō-uke) |
| 8 | Shizen-dachi | Reverse punch and front kick combined |
| 9 | Zenkutsu-dachi | Low sweep (gedan-barai) |
| 10 | Jigotai-dachi | Lunge punch (oi-zuki) |
| 11 | Shizen-dachi | Outward block (soto-uke) |
| 12 | Zenkutsu-dachi | Middle punch |
| 13 | Zenkutsu-dachi | Reinforced block (morote-uke) |
| 14 | Zenkutsu-dachi | Reverse punch |
| 15 | Shizen-dachi | Inward block (uchi-uke) |
| 16 | Naihanchi-dachi | Naihanchi step |
Cross decks is where the footwork lives. A student who can walk the floor cleanly in each stance, transitioning smoothly with each step, has the foundation for everything else. At higher levels, the sensei may call variations or add combinations. At lower levels, the instruction is often just: walk it correctly.
Section 3 — Repetition conditioning (kiso tanren, 基礎鍛練)
Kiso tanren means foundation training, and it is the high-repetition conditioning core of the class — about twenty-five minutes of counted work reaching the fifty-five minute mark.
Foundation drills
Seven drills performed in stationary stances, typically counted to ten or fifty by a rotating count-caller:
- Naname zenkutsu-dachi kaiten uchi-uke — slanted front-bent stance, middle cross block
- Naihanchi-dachi kaiten uchi-uke — Naihanchi stance, middle cross block
- Naihanchi fumi-komi-ashi — Naihanchi stomp
- Jigotai-dachi ryōte yoko-uke — squat stance, both-hands middle block in and out
- Jigotai-dachi ryōte jōge-uke — squat stance, split blocks (up-down)
- Jigotai-dachi nejikomi — squat stance, screw punch (short, twisting)
- Jigotai-dachi uraken — squat stance, three-way elbow backfist (front, side, lower)
Kicks
Five kick types, 10–50 counts each:
- Neko-ashi-dachi mae-geri — cat stance front kick (front foot)
- Shizen-dachi mae-geri — natural stance front kick (rear foot)
- Shizen-dachi yoko-geri — natural stance side kick
- Shizen-dachi ushiro-geri — natural stance back kick
- Shizen-dachi mawashi-geri — natural stance roundhouse kick
Conditioning counts
Performed to fixed totals:
| Technique | Count |
|---|---|
| Leg squats | 100 |
| Kicks | 100 (10 per leg × 5 sets) |
| Pushups | 25 |
| Wari-uke (outer double block) | 100 |
| Jōdan-uke (upper block) | 100 |
| Uchi-uke (inner block) | 100 |
| Single punch | 200 |
| Double punch | 200 |
| Triple punch | 210 |
The count-caller rotates through the class — a junior student counts one set, a senior counts the next. Counting aloud in Japanese at the right pace and volume is itself a practice. Getting to the fifty-fifth minute mark with something left is also a practice.
Break — five minutes
A genuine rest. The class resumes on the hour.
Section 4 — Kata (型)
Thirty minutes of form practice. Kata work varies more than any other section: which kata, how many repetitions, whether the class works together or individually, whether the sensei stops to correct or lets the forms run. At lower levels, a single kata might be worked in detail for the full thirty minutes. At higher levels, a senior student might run through several kata while the sensei watches and periodically intervenes.
Section 5 — Bunkai (分解)
Ten minutes of kata analysis paired with a partner. The dentō (伝統, formal traditional) bunkai is drilled at lower ranks; ōyō (応用, applied) bunkai becomes the more typical work at senior ranks. A separate article addresses the distinction between these two kinds of analysis.
Section 6 — Kumite (組手) or blocking line
Ten minutes of paired practice. On some days this is yakusoku kumite (約束組手, prearranged sparring) — structured attack-and-defense sequences. On others it is a blocking line, where one student attacks and the line of defenders practices a given response. The form varies; the contact with another person does not.
Section 7 — Arm conditioning (kotegitai, 小手鍛え)
Five minutes of forearm conditioning. Partners work three sequences of contact drills, conditioning the forearms for the sustained blocking work of the system:
- Low – middle – low
- Outward – outward – strike
- Face – chest – face – chest
Kotegitai also serves as a cooldown for the arms after the high-repetition work earlier in the class. The slow, deliberate contact is different in quality from the counted blocks of the conditioning section.
Bow out
The ceremony mirrors the bow-in, with arigatō gozaimashita in place of onegai shimasu at each bow. The class ends facing each other, then forward, before being dismissed.
The structure above is from the Karate Sunnyvale class manual. Individual classes vary in emphasis and sequence, particularly in the second hour. What does not vary is the ceremony — bow in, clean the deck, bow out — and the basic arc from warmup through conditioning through paired work. After enough years, the structure becomes invisible; you stop noticing the skeleton and start noticing what you’re doing inside it.