All Shotokan instructors and teachers emphasis kime when practising punching, blocking and kicking. Put simply, kime is the ability to focus power for a split second at the point of delivering your technique. As I understand it, kime is a whole body focus.
I would explain this by referring to gyaku zuki in zenkuzu dachi stance (reverse punch in front stance). Firstly, the body must be relaxed, front knee bent, hips at 450 back leg slightly bent, left arm reaching out in front (hand open), right fist resting on right hip.
https://doi.org/10.3390/sports13070218
This diagram gives you an idea of the muscle groups involved in delivering the reverse punch. The right foot pushes from the floor, the hips twist, the left hand pulls back (hikite) as the right punches. All this is done with speed and a sharp exhalation, culminating in a tensing of the muscles and a squeezing and contraction of the lower abdomen (hara, or tandem, or dantian) and pelvic floor muscles. Rick Hotton, Sensei refers to this as ‘relaxed heaviness’.
Kime literally means decide or decision from the Japanese verb kimeru to decide. Taking this further we may think of kime as “a decisive intent to produce and focus maximum power”. Every technique in Shotokan, in kihon, kumite and kata should manifest the dynamic expression of kime. In reality, full power kime is exerted in probably about 30% of a training session. We learn slowly with small steps and repetition. Once mastered, then we perform with kime.
In researching this blog, I’ve come across several articles that put forward a different view of kime and its function. Namely, the muscular contraction and focus at the end of a technique prevents hyper-extension and hence protects the joints. They go further to say that kime reduces overall power delivery because there is no follow through. Quote ‘boxers don’t freeze their punches, and no-one punches harder than a boxer’. This has challenged my thinking but, I’m going to stay with the whole body synchronisation when delivering a technique. I will go further by pointing out the health benefits of karate training if pursued sensibly, taking into account age, flexibility and physical condition. The flexibility is akin to yoga and the whole body tension (kime) provides muscle toning akin to resistance band training.
Many karateka like to demonstrate their power by breaking wood, concrete blocks and roofing tiles. This is referred to a “tameshiwari” literal translation “breaking test”. This can be quite spectacular and is often carried out at karate demonstrations when publicising a club to attract new members. You don’t have to be a trained martial artist to be able to break a pine board, but the training definitely helps and probably prevents broken wrists and knuckles but, I am more interested in the focus aspect of tameshiwari. My instructor Roger Carpenter, Kyoshi, recalled a time he had with Soke Kanazawa. He asked Kanazawa Sensei to demonstrate breaking. He produced four, inch thick pine boards from his garage. Kanazawa then said, “which one do you want me to break?” The implication being that he was perfectly capable of breaking all four, but he could also break any one of them individually. They decided he should break the last one in the pile, which he did. A few days later, Kanazawa Soke explained the process to Carpenter Sensei. He said that the practice of Tai Chi enabled him to channel and focus his intrinsic internal energy. He visualised his energy flowing from his centre (hara) up though his body and along his arm to project outwards from his fist. Just recently Soke’s son, Kancho Kanazawa posted a YouTube clip of him breaking a third pine board but not the first two. Demonstrating the skill taught to him by his father.
Click here to watch the demo: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1859756801459453
To attempt to explain this phenomenon we need to delve into the world of physics. Hitting a pine board (or any object) sets up a longitudinal compression wave through the wood. The molecular structure of wood is complicated but for simplicity it is helpful to think of the material as a series of masses (molecules) attached by springs. Each molecule can vibrate backwards and forwards when a force acts on the wood.
When the wood is hit, the compression wave travels through and if/when it comes to a weak point, the wood will break.
So, are advanced practitioners able to focus the internal energy rather like a lens bringing parallel light to a focus?
The karateka in question, Kancho Nobuaki, is able to direct his kime through 2 blocks and focus it on the third one to break it. Is this still within the laws of physics or are we now in the realm of metaphysics? Many Tai Chi practitioners talk of using their chi or internal energy. The underlying philosophy of Yoga refers to the body’s internal energy as ‘prana’. However, there can be a lot of showmanship surrounding the notion of internal energy resulting in a good deal of scepticism. From a scientific perspective, if there is concrete, absolute data to support the focusing of internal energy, then it is possible.
My own experience with Soke Kanazawa was after a Tai Chi session I organised for him at my club, Kobukan in Windsor. In the restaurant after training, I asked him about the Chi Gong exercise he taught regarding fire and water. Moving our hand upwards we visualised fire, lowering our hands we visualised water. This was to experience a temperature change from hot to cold in our fingers. Needless to say, no-one there actually experienced that. In restaurant afterwards I asked him to explain. He grabbed my hand, moved his hand up and it became very warm, he reversed his hand, so the fingers pointed down and dropped his hand. It immediately went very cold. It happened so quickly, but it happened. I asked him how and he just said “image” by which I interpreted visualisation. I don’t think mastery of internal energy can be taught. Or, is that the practitioners are not able to fully explain and teach this mastery. I am both fascinated and frustrated. I seek a further understanding but as yet, I remain in the dark.
Put simply, kime is the ability to focus power for a split second at the point of delivering your technique. As I understand it, kime is a whole body focus.
Kanazawa Soke states in his book, ‘the very essence of all Karate-Do techniques is kime and kime is the ability to release the power of a technique at an intentional point’
Kanazawa’s Karate: Hirokazu Kanazawa, Nick Adamou, Dragon Books, 1981
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