Kime, strength, and technique

We often hear and use the word kime at the dojo. We all seem to understand that it means some kind of inner strength that we can achieve in that instant when we hit our opponent. It takes a very long time to develop this instant strength because it is the strength of mind control over body actions.  There are many elements involved in kime.  All of those elements are put together in a fraction of a second. This little blog is about those elements that result in kime.

 When most people anticipate that they have to perform an effort with maximum strength, they tighten their muscles much before they need to do so.  This makes them slow and tires them before they should get tired.  Additionally, it reduces their strength.  The reason for the speed and strength reduction is that the effort made by each muscle is being cancelled by the effort made by the opposing muscles.   Every karate move is designed to allow for a qualitative change in the moment of contact.  Only after  that change should one tense one’s body.  The rest of the time, one should be completely relaxed.  Loose, comfortable positions are key to achieve this.

I think the most important step in karate training is to learn the basic positions (senkutsu-dachi - forward / striking stand, Kokutsu-dachi - back stance, and Kiba-dachi - horse riding position).  Once these basic positions become easy and one can easily shift from one to the next, it is very easy to maintain a relaxed position in any kata.  Each basic position places the feet, hips, and shoulders in the correct place to achieve movement and strength.  Advancing through katas and belts without the understanding of foot, hip, and shoulder placement through the basic movements is a waste of time.  

Comfort is essential to relaxation.  I suggest people find the comfort height at which they can move easily between positions.  Then, as they become stronger, more elastic, and better coordinated, they can lower their stances gradually.  It is better to have a senkutsu-dachi with a perfectly straight back leg, a thrusting power that pushes from the back heel to the hips, and a forwardly bent front leg that sustains the knee directly above the foot, in completely vertical position than to have a lower but weak position.

The correct karate movements are designed to produce tension when they are completed. For instance, senkutsu-dachi turns our back leg into a rod that brings the strength from the ground, to the heel, straight up to the gluteus, pushing the strength up the hips. If the back is straight and the shoulders are aligned with the hips, then the strength is transferred directly to the shoulders. Then, the punch is delivered by thrusting the arm straight forward. The arm should move forward without tension. But in the final moment, we twist the fist inwardly, producing tension in the instant the movement is completed. So, we finish in a totally tense position that uses our back leg and the punching arm as rods that deliver the strength of our whole body through the fist, in just an instant.

Right when the fist connects the punch, it starts recoiling. This sudden change of muscle use creates an instant in which all the antagonistic muscles are simultaneously being used. This leads to the final instant strength.

Kung fu has a famous one-inch-punch immortalized by Bruce Lee.  It may seem magical to the untrained.  But the one-inch-punch is simply part of what we do every day.  The idea behind a one inch, or two inch, or three inch punch is that impact force is simply mass (your weight) times the acceleration.  So, if the punch is thrusted with your body in rigid form, like in senkutsu-dachi, the point of impact has the whole force generated by your complete body mass.  And if you just advance that final inch with bursting acceleration, then your mass is multiplied by that acceleration, generating great power in the impact.  

When we hit in karate, we perform that final inch of power by simply stepping on the front foot in the moment the punch hits.  This is an extremely common practice that adds strength to our punching skill.