The inner core of Karate

Introduction

As from the very early age when I was drawn to the fascinating world of martial arts way back in the seventies, one of the main things that attracted me was the philosophy and mysticism shrouding the great masters. I was twelve years old at that time and my cousin was sixteen and into the study of kung-fu. That was the first real contact I had with martial arts. I saw in what he was doing, something so complete, with physical training leading to a certain level of fitness, and an inner state of being that telegraphed confidence and focus. Since then, thirty years have passed and my path crossed with that of many great masters of the art and science of karate. I consider myself very lucky to have had the opportunity to be at the right time of so much structured study that evolved. The continued development of karate triggered a stronger sense of loyalty towards the traditional values and qualities of the original karate. The competition world evolved, but at the same time karate managed to remain faithful towards the art as much as there was development in the sport. The effectiveness of karate technique has been proven also scientifically by many scholars who practice the art.

Beginners to the discipline may have a variety of ideals, goals and objectives backing their decision to plunge into this world of punches, kicks, strikes, blocks and smashes. Some may want to compete, some may want to learn some defence technique, some want to just try it out, others will just be hanging out with friends. It would be interesting to map exactly what a class of beginners is actually aiming for, especially in today's culture of wanting achievements from the fast-track route. The reality, from experience, is that only around ten percent remain and actually progress to the higher levels of the study. This could be the result of personal perceptions that do not intersect, even at introduction stage. It could also be because of unclear opportunities that could justify the personal investment of the beginner into a time horizon which spans over several years. It may also emanate from the lack of dialogue between instructor and student leaving wide gaps in the understanding of what karate is for the student with what she will actually get from the tuition. What drew me to the study of karate, was the ability of masters of a certain mature age to continue with the practice with certain efficiency and effectiveness. What even fascinated me was the following such masters get from the younger generation. They seem to want to learn what will eventually take them to that level. Amazing to me was also the ability of the older practitioners to keep up with younger students in training sessions. It was evident that it was not a question of having super-fitness levels, but something more that was compensating for the weaker muscles consequent to age. For the beginner's eyes, this capability is unexplainable, as it is for the layman and from my experience, even for the medical practitioner. The performance of a mature karate master, the level of her physical fitness compared to that a young person, and medical theory, do not seem to intersect into a correlated explanation. The life-long study in karate seemed to me that it was giving dedicated practitioners that force that counterbalances old age. This is mainly what kept me investing, even as I myself have matured.

Since recent decades, a new dimension was added to karate, and that is competition. Needless to say, there are many athletes that are drawn into this sport for competition. Unfortunately, competition without the proper understanding of the inner side of karate, in my opinion results in very shallow level of technique exhibited. The challenge of coaches and instructors is to balance the competition training with the study of the inner core dimension, as otherwise, in my view, the traditional qualities of karate will become endangered.

In this dissertation, I attempt to look at karate from the inner core outwards, as at the moment this is where my studies have led me.

The three dimensions of karate

It is acknowledged by many masters of a certain mature age, that there are three dimensions in the study of karate, namely

•  The outer muscular dimension

•  The inner core dimension

•  The spirit or strength of intention

When one is young, both in age and in the study of karate, the imitation of technique will be limited for a variety of reasons. Apart from the wide array of new body movements that need perseverance to even just command the body limbs to do, in karate it is mainly the eyes that are the portal of information to the brain. The instructor is like a compass showing the direction by exhibiting technique. The eyes of the student observe and process the intention of the brain to do a certain technique in a certain way. The brain of the student only has immediate control on the outer muscular layer of the body. If the instructor is of certain maturity in karate, his technique will have become efficient and effective through the inner engine of the body. This is where a younger student will find confusion. The eyes are telegraphing images of a certain geometry and movement, which are not the result of just the outer muscle of the body of the instructor, whilst her brain has the inherent limitation of just being able to command that outer part of her body. My own experience with this is that even if I am endowed with a personal talent of having a good sense of observation, and in my earlier days in karate, my instructors used to applaud my power and technique, I was always criticised for my stiffness in my upper body. This was probably the result of my determination to exhibit the highest level of power and force in my technique, whilst the channels of communication between my brain and my body were only leading to the external muscles. Through maturity, diligent training and hundreds of thousands of repetitions since then, I think that I would attribute that criticism to the fact that it was the outer muscle that was powering my technique, whilst today I have been lucky to have understood the advantages of using the inner core of the body. I explain this to students by using the analogy of trying to generate the force of percussion of a ‘nunchaku', but using a ‘bo' instead. The former has a free joint, which transmits the speed of the grip to the next section with a multiplier effect that is inimitable if using a ‘bo'. Needless to say this does not imply that use of the ‘bo' in martial arts is ineffective. It only means that the generation of power using a ‘bo' requires different physics of technique. The same applies to the karate exhibited by a master, using the free joints of her limbs to leverage power, when compared with that karate exhibited by a beginner, who is normally misunderstanding the underlying physics behind the power generated by the master. That said, in order for a mature student to compensate for less muscular engagement in a technique by applying the physics of the movement of a ‘nunchaku', she inevitably seeks another engine within her body that is powerful enough to act as the force applied at the grip of the ‘nuchaku', generating movement that is transmitted to the next section of the weapon and finally hitting the target. I personally dedicated years to that quest for discovering the engine within my body that could give me the result explained.

I see the inner core of the body as that fibre that makes the inner side of a whip closest to the grip. I assimilate the grip of the whip with the centre part of the human body, which is the area of navel. The Japanese term for this part is ‘hara'. I remember a very interesting training camp with Sensei Nishiyama Hidetaka and Sensei Higaonna Morio. The former was frequently during the session giving us an exercise of standing on ‘heisoku dachi', that is straight with both feet together and pointing to the front. Then he inspired us to imagine a winch inside our left side of the abdomen and this winch was pulling up the leg from the ground. Looking at Sensei seemed as if his left leg was becoming shorter as he raised it straight and his foot distanced from the floor with a gap of some eight inches. Basically his explanation was that this imaginary winch in the left side of the abdomen was pulling up the hip, tilting the weight onto the right side while pulling up the left side resulting in a ‘shorter' leg. An observation here is that the raised leg was completely relaxed. Repeating this exercise till this very day has made me understand the inner core of the oblique muscles within the abdominal region.

Sensei Higaonna who is a Gojo Ryu master needing no introduction, then complemented this exercise whilst showing us his way of shifting in ‘sanchin dachi' and putting his body into a posture that maximises the body mass to support his technique. He used his hands in a rotating motion seemingly cupping and directing air from around him to his nostrils, following that imaginary air down his windpipe with the same hand, arriving down to his belly and repeating the motion with both hands in a rotational movement, whilst at the same time expanding his belly into an impressionable size. Carrying out this exercise, he was curling in his tailbone whilst keeping his back straight and back-neck out, and with the bloated lower abdomen, and completely relaxed limbs, he could easily demonstrate the strength of this technique by whipping out both the lower and the upper limbs into percussion techniques of karate. The impression he portrayed was that he was expanding the lungs downward instead of out through the chest, compressing his abdominal internal organs further down in the lower abdomen. This compact abdomen was compared to making the grip of a whip even more stiff. With a slight vibration of this abdominal area, similar to a flick of the wrist of the hand holding a stiff whip, he Higaonna Sensei exhibited impressionable transmission of speed into his limbs to execute karate techniques. Upon percussion, he also leveraged his compact lower abdomen and curled tailbone, to support the impact with all the weight he could put in, without losing control of his balance and posture. For the untrained eye of a beginner, overwhelmed with so many techniques to learn, this physics entwined with the self discovery of the internal engine of one's body to execute technique, may be indigestible especially in the early years of training and study.

I have myself worked regularly and hard doing the above two exercises, and my experience is that it feels that my brain now seems to have gained control of another dimension, motor, muscle, or organ, within the inner side of the abdomen. This has helped me in the outer techniques of karate, including posture, shifting, vibration, rotation, pendulum movement, and all dynamics that transmit and accumulate into karate technique of certain speed and composure upon percussion with the target. The main difficulty I find is explaining this feeling to my students, who as I said have all the good intention to imitate karate technique towards perfection, but cannot achieve those levels without application of this inner dimension.

The last dimension normally acknowledged by masters of the art, is the spirit, or the will power of intention. This is probably the most sublime of the other physical movements as with it comes the ability to judge the proper timing both of the technique, and of the attack or defence in karate. This level of intention can only be mastered in my view, after the mind is free from the technique and its complexities mentioned above. At that stage when the mind is still focussed on how to perform better karate technique, it would be difficult to think also on how to better judge distance and when to best execute the technique. However, this is an important phase of study as repetition of technique in a quest for perfection of the external and the internal motors of the body, will teach and develop the virtue of perseverance in the student. This will in turn hone the virtue of determination. When the student matures, then with the confidence she has in her technical ability, supported by the virtues of perseverance and determination, developing of strong intention and focus will be the next level of progression.

The Inner Core – key to efficient and effective karate

In my view, the chevron of karate study during the life-cycle of a student, should point towards one objective, that is the ability to do kumite all your life. Kumite is the objective of karate and kihon and kata are study aids to get there. I view karate study as following the figure of infinity ( ¥ ). The starting point is kihon, the centre point is kata, and the other final point is kumite. Study should follow the pattern of kihon to refine technique, leading one to applying technique in an imaginary fight using kata, then venturing into real attack and defence with an opponent, kumite. This will teach the student weaknesses through experience and the study will take her back to kata in a quest to understand the imaginary fight using techniques left by the forefathers of karate to preserve form. This should in turn take the student to kihon again to refine the basic technique, and so forth, back to kata, then to kumite, in an infinite iteration of study, and adaptation of personal body changes. However, in my view, the challenge of a student should remain that of being able to use karate for defence and social welfare, long into old age.

When one is young, as explained above, although technique will look like the karate of the older masters, there will be heavy influence of the strong outer muscles, especially in the case of physically strong persons. Weaker persons may through perseverance, discover the inner core before those who are strong, since the latter students will not feel the need to find a compensating engine. That, I suppose is fine as long as the student is gradually led search for the inner core, as otherwise, the ultimate goal of practicing karate into old age may not be achieved. This is what actually happens with most other physical activity in sports. Very rarely do we find sport disciplines that can be performed beyond a certain age. The reason for this is probably because the movement is dependent of the outer skeletal muscles, and these deteriorate with age.

The diligent student of karate will be gradually understanding how to make up for the body changes consequent to maturing into older age, by applying the inner muscles and nerves to hold an advantageous fighting posture, to shift into different directions, to vibrate, rotate, rise and drop, so as to generate and transmit speed into the limbs that external muscle can seldom produce. The inner core of the body is known to connect the upper torso with the hips. It also projects forward the centre of gravity of the body without dislodging the stability, and this has the acknowledged advantage of shortening reaction time in sabaki movements. The inner core also pulls in tension from the limbs into the inner abdomen, with the advantage of releasing tension from the extremities of the limbs. This in turn is conducive to even more speed that is not dependent on external muscle strength. The limbs are ‘transformed' into nunchaku weapons with the added impulse in percussion of the technique mentioned above. From my personal experience, above all, the inner core washes away tension in the mind that is the result of fear, anxiety and excitement, raising the advantages over the opponent.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to share with the reader, the inspiration I found in my personal quest for the inner core in karate. I have for some years now been intrigued by the fighting posture and attitude of most animals, with particular interest in cats. It all started in a training session and some quality time I spent a few years ago with Sensei Watanabe of Brazil during a training camp with Sensei Nishiyama. Sensei Watanabe is a short but stocky person. In 1972, it is said that he won the World Championships in kumite with the highest number of ippon scores. Due to the language barrier, he explained his kumite to me using body language and without any doubt, the impression he was telegraphing was that he was imitating the wild cat. The way he growled, the way he curled his posture, the way he stretched the mask of his face, the way he stood his ground, pouncing into action at speed that is surely not possible to imitate at his age using external muscles, the sound coming from his fully exhaled lungs, all gave me the feeling I was facing a cornered cat. This experience took me into the realms of exploring seriously the quest of that inner core, entwined with strong intention and supplemented by the external muscles of my body, that should take me to maturity with a certain level of confidence.

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