Kime or the puzzle of an efficient practice

Kime or the puzzle of an efficient practice

Kime is one of the most widely misunderstood and misused words in karatedo. Often used to describe techniques executed with speed and strength, in reality it is much more than that.

In Japanese, “kime” is the noun form of the verb “kimeru” which means “to decide”. In martial arts we could interpret it as “decision” or a decisive way of executing our techniques.

But one should not confound kime and pure physical power. Sadly we can see “advanced” level karateka practicing only with muscle force, heavy exaggerated breathing and other “special effects” like stomping, snapping the gi and a fierce look. These theatrical accessories are just masking a poor practice.

Indeed, it is hard to understand and capture all the bits of the puzzle that will build up kime. It’s like a recipe with a lot of ingredients – each equally important. These ingredients include: concentration + timing + explosivity + breathing + strength + hikite.

Concentration

Using all your senses, try to perceive the slightest changes in your environment. Don’t focus on the area that you are attacking and don’t look at the limb where you are expecting an attack to come from. Look “towards” your opponent to capture his silhouette as a whole and catch his movements entirely. Concentration leads to mental readiness - a relaxed but aware state of mind - which is one of the most important ingredients.

Timing

After observation comes analysis – to choose the right moment to place the attack. By examining the attitude, the posture, the state of mind of our opponent, we can find a gap to penetrate. It requires readiness and concentration to respond fast – body and mind are equally solicited. In karatedo we have two types of reaction to an attack: “sen no sen” and “go no sen”. Sen no sen means that you are responding to the attack of your opponent, intercepting it to place your own technique before he could finish. In shitoryu karatedo, the principle of “hangeki” demonstrates sen no sen perfectly. Go no sen means you choose to let your opponent execute fully his technique, block it and then counter-attack before he could initiate another one.

Explosivity

In order to execute sharp, penetrating techniques, acceleration and speed should be ameliorated. To do so, the body should be relaxed and correctly aligned to permit a rapid initiation of movement and an efficient transfer of energy through the joint axes. At the beginning of our practice, during the “acquisition phase”, it is normal to find it too complex to concentrate on all the aspects. But when we finally assimilated the basis correctly, through specific target training and growing experience, we start to quit the state of a medieval ram to become like a whip. Techniques are no longer “pushed” – they become sudden, crisp movements. To achieve this state is a question of contracting-relaxing at the right moment. Beginner students tend to keep muscle tension for too long making their movements stiff and robotic. When blocking or punching, joints are momentarily locked and muscles are contracted for a short instant. After the impact, tension must immediately be released. However relaxing unnecessary force doesn’t mean reducing alertness.

Breathing

In karatedo we use two kinds of breathings: short expelling breathing (characteristic of shuri-te kata) and long pressing breathing (observed in naha-te kata). The two phases of breathing – inspiration through the nose and expiration through a mouth slightly open – should be done in a controlled manner, but with a relaxed upper body. Do not blow from the mouth cavity as if you would blow a candle – air should be expelled like a pump by contracting the muscles of the abdomen. Finish the breath and the technique at the same time. Release tension immediately after the effort to prepare for the next technique. This kind diaphragmatic breathing enhances core strength and permits the upper body to stay strong but flexible compared to “chest breathing” when thorax and shoulders are not free as engaged during breathing.

Strength

It is more than just the contraction of different muscles groups. For real strength we need muscle power, core strength and stability. For good stability our positions should be grounded, correctly aligned and our center of gravity should be controlled and shifted according to the situation. Why is alignment important? In a good posture the generated force passes efficiently through the joint axes, thus preventing injuries. The most important part of the body for a martial artist is the center: the core and pelvis – obliques, abdomen, lumbar back muscles and hips. Through specific exercises and diaphragmatic breathing the core and pelvis must be trained to be strong yet flexible as it is the “power source” of the body, the starting point of all our techniques. A poor core will affect speed, strength, acceleration and alignment badly, resulting in putting more stress on shoulders and making us compensate with exaggerated movements or too much muscle tension. Muscles are obviously important as they have various anatomical and physiological functions – including stabilizing the spine and permitting a range of movements (skeletal muscles) or operating our internal organs (smooth and cardiac muscles). It’s skeletal muscles that generate force, it’s these that we can voluntarily activate and develop. In martial arts it’s not a great mass but a functional, elastic musculature that is needed, which is good for stability, power transfer and rapidity as well as injury prevention. It is all about balance.

Hikite

As a three-legged chair is not stable; a technique without hikite (withdrawn hand) is not complete. Why is it so important? Try to punch with only one hand letting the other one hang by your side. How does it feel? Weird – lacking balance and force. By its reversed direction, hikite activates hip rotation, stabilizing and giving more power to the technique. But how to do it properly? As the name suggests, hikite is “drawn” backwards and not “slapped” to the side. It’s placed just above the belt touching the side at the height of the floating ribs. Relax and lower your shoulders. Close down the armpit and contract pectorals. Do not crisp or twist the fist too much. Engage lateral back muscles and triceps. Be careful not to pull it too far or too high – you risk putting unnecessary tense on shoulders and damaging them. In relaxed state, hikite should stay firmly in place but with a relaxed forearm and wrist. At the moment of the impact the same amount of force should be employed in hikite to engage both sides equally. It’s used not only to stabilize and reinforce the other hand’s technique but it also protects the ribs and some vital points. Hikite is never inactive – it can serve as a back elbow strike (ushiro hiji ate) or just simply prepared for the next attack. In all cases, hikite is technically important but it also reminds us to be mentally and physically centered. Again, the key is balance.

This is theory; but what to do in practice to achieve kime?

It is so complex that it’s better to focus on one aspect at a time to crystalize it separately. You cannot improve everything at the same time. To ameliorate a skill, isolate it and give it as a target for a training session. You can even try building a sort of circuit training repeating the same exercise with different focus points each time. Here is a concrete example: do a kata without its techniques, concentrating only on stances for the first time. At the next repetition, you can switch to the techniques; then you start it over as a breathing exercise paying close attention to the alternation of short rapid blows / air retention / long pressing breaths. Then focus on strength and stability by slowing in down and staying in each position for a longer time to insist on core alignment and muscle contraction – as a tanren exercise a partner can challenge you by snapping and pushing you to test resistance. To train explosivity, cut it up and drill only segments of the kata. To improve concentration and correct timing, ask a partner to be the tori and perform the attacks coming from the direction that suits the kata. With two or three partners in different directions this bunkai training should become fluid.

With regular practice, through these exercises all pieces of our puzzle get linked together: controlled techniques (strength/hikite), mind in alert (concentration), reaction (timing/explosivity) and optimized diaphragmatic breathing.

Remember, kime is the essence of efficient practice – without it, it is like an empty jar: nice form but no substance.