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ky0han
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The purpose of Kime

hi everyone. I recently started wondering why kime is promoted in that high degree in karate circles (at least in Shotokan). Kime or kimeru as everybody knows (I guess) means to fix, to set or to decide. So I understand kime as the fixiation at the end of a certain technique due to muscle tension. But why do most people spend years to train being relaxed all the time and than suddenly at the end of a technique do that kime thing? Is there any combative relevance? I have experienced the following. Hitting with kime feels a lot weaker than hitting relaxed. That is may be because the fixiation of a punch causes a massive deterioration of speed. And speed is an important factor for hitting hard. I only found one reasonable explanation. Joint protection, when doing Kihon. When hitting the opponent or another target you do it relaxed. The fist is stopped by making contact and you can not straighten the arm further. But when punching thin air, there is nothing that can stop the straightening of the arm and that could cause damages to the joints (e.g. elbow) over a long period of time. But is Kime only for joint protection? Any suggestions? Regards Holger  

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Hi Holger,

Always an interesting topic and I’ll be interested to hear everyone’s thoughts. Thanks for kicking this off.

ky0han wrote:
But is Kime only for joint protection?

If by “Kime” you mean brief muscular tension at the end of the technique, then that’s certainly how I see it. When we hit the target then the target will decelerate the arm. If we miss the target – or drive straight though the target (great when that happens :-) – then we need to be able to protect the joint by strongly and briefly slamming on the brakes.

Here’s an extract from my 2002 Bunkai-Jutsu book:

Iain Abernethy / Bunkai-Jutsu book wrote:
The muscles should tense briefly at the end of each technique. The reason for this momentary tension is to protect the joints. For a blow to have the greatest possible effect it must hit the target at maximum speed. If the limb was to carry on moving at high speed then injuries such as hyper-extended elbows could occur. Just before the limb is fully extended the muscles contract to that the limb decelerates in as short a time as possible. Without this type of muscular contraction, the limb would have to start to slow down sooner (if damaged joints are to be avoided) and this would seriously reduce the effect of the blow. A common mistake is for the muscles to contract harder and longer than is actually required. This unnecessary muscular contraction will result in premature fatigue and can slow the delivery of the techniques. Once a technique has been executed the muscles must relax instantly so that the limb is ready to move again.  It is important to remember that in kata, as in fighting, there are times to be hard and times to be soft. Using muscular strength indiscriminately is the sign of an inexperienced karateka.

This “muscular emergency stop” is not what I call “kime” though. I tend to think of kime more as the co-ordinated use of the entire body coming together at the correct moment to ensure effectiveness. This convergence of forces is what I think of as being “kime” (i.e. focus).

A technique can therefore have kime without such muscular tension. Indeed, the blow that hits and takes the guy out can definitely be said to have plenty of “kime” … regardless of whether a brief tensing of the muscles was needed to decelerate the technique after the event or not.

All the best,

Iain

ky0han
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Hi Iain,

Iain Abernethy wrote:
I tend to think of kime more as the co-ordinated use of the entire body coming together at the correct moment to ensure effectiveness. This convergence of forces is what I think of as being “kime” (i.e. focus).

In many books Kime is described as physical and mental. So do you consider the mental side (e.g. full commitment) to be also a factor of good kime? I guess so, when it comes to effectiveness.

So when the convergence of the above mentioned forces is Kime for you, than maybe the meaning of kime fits more with "to decide" to your point of view. Is a technique effective, then it is a decisive one. Nagamine Shoshin refers to winning techniqes in kumite shiai as of "kime waza".

Interesting. That makes sence to me.

Thanks for that.

Regards Holger   

Gavin J Poffley
Gavin J Poffley's picture

Ky0han wrote:
Nagamine Shoshin refers to winning techniqes in kumite shiai as of "kime waza

This term is used freely outside of karate circles as well and simply means a "decisive technique" or could be paraphrased as a "telling blow" (could be a lock or throw instead though).

The karate specific term "kime" is a little different and not generally written with the same character. For those who understand the characters the kime in "kime waza" is the same one as used for the verb kimeru whereas the karate concept of "kime" more often uses the character usually read as kiwameru (Also the "kyoku" from kyokushinkai).

A number of Okinawan karate authorities say that this term was coined on the mainland, probably in the original shotokan (who seem to use the term far more frequently than other groups) in the 1940s -50s although it has achieved wide useage and even been reverse imported bac kto Okinawa in some cases.

ky0han
ky0han's picture

Hi Gavin,

thanks for that. Since I know that there are two kanji for writing "ki" in "kime", I was curious which one of them is "correct" (maybe both are) or more often used.

The first one you've mentioned with the meaning of decision is used by the English wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kime

The second one with the meaning of "climax, zenith or hight" is obviously used by the Japanese wikipedia. http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A5%B5%E3%82%81

I also read somewhere that kime is a pretty modern term.

So thanks again, Gavin. That was of much help.

Regards Holger

Gavin J Poffley
Gavin J Poffley's picture

Hi Holger

Both are used but I come across the second one (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A5%B5%E3%82%81) a lot more often in reference to karate. The phonetics of the word are probably derived from the regular word "kimeru" (to fix set or decide)  although there is a theory that it comes from another word "kime" meaning feel or texture in the sense of cloth or wood grain etc.

At the end of the day it is quite hard to say whether any character is "correct" or not as many Japanese words originated prior to the introduction of Chinese characters and simply had the character with the closest meaning assigned to them, becoming a new reading for that character. In some cases it has been proven to be quite arbitrary! If Kime is a modern word as is thought then the choice of which character to use is similarly arbitrary.

With such an example of minor, specialist interest terminology there are no real authorities to decide one way or another although I am sure that different individuals or organisations will have a preference for one way or the other. There are similar debates about the correct character to write "kata" and "ki" as well.

Personally I think this process of assimilation and adaptation mirrors the history and development of karate itself quite well!

Jose Garcia
Jose Garcia's picture

Iain Abernethy wrote:
This “muscular emergency stop” is not what I call “kime” though. I tend to think of kime more as the co-ordinated use of the entire body coming together at the correct moment to ensure effectiveness. This convergence of forces is what I think of as being “kime” (i.e. focus).

A technique can therefore have kime without such muscular tension. Indeed, the blow that hits and takes the guy out can definitely be said to have plenty of “kime” … regardless of whether a brief tensing of the muscles was needed to decelerate the technique after the event or not.

Sorry for this an old thread and perhaps there is a new one about this.

From this words quoted above, should we understand there is the reason why many karatekas say too much "air" kihon can lead to a misuse and misleading of real kime? Does impact training prevent us from the common error of making a power-stopping kime? Or there is a way to practice Kihon (and Kata!) avoiding "false Kime"?

Kevin73
Kevin73's picture

"Kime" is the muscular tension at the end of a technique at it's point of impact.  When done properly it should only last a fraction of a second and tense to flex the muscles that are being used to deliver the technique.  In practice for beginners, you flex the whole body at point of impact to learn muscular/body control.  Sanchin kata helps develop this muscular control and is called "Chinkuchi" in Okinawan karate.

What most are defining as "kime" is actually what would be termed "ki-ai", or having all parts coming together into one.  Kime would be a part of this, but is a seperate thing.

Here is a perfect example of what "Kime" should be.  Notice the fluidity in movement punctuated by quick snapshots of tension and independant parts working together to accomplish the goal.

Marc
Marc's picture

Hi,

looking up "kime" in the wonderful tangorin Japanese language tool brings up the verb "kimeru", which basically may be read as "to be decisive". So "kime" might be read as "decisiveness".

As Iain often explains, if it gets physical, with each move I want to end the situation there and then. The next move is only necessary if the previous one failed to do so. I want every move to be the deciding move, so I have to be decisive in delivering it.

Indecisiveness is not only when I hit half-heartedly. Indecisiveness is also the state of denial when I actually get attacked by somebody. This video shows an example:

I might hesitate to defend myself because I cannot believe somebody really wants to do me harm (I'm a nice person, so why would they). You lose time by thinking, as the instructor in the video puts it, "what the ...?"

A decisive mindset of course will result in a decisive movement or technique. Sometimes explosive, sometimes swift and smooth, sometimes hard as a rock.

All the best, Marc

Jose Garcia
Jose Garcia's picture

Hello.

In another forum a GojuRyu karateka has answered me that ChinkuChi is a different concept, similar but not exactly Kime. It seem is not contraction but proper joint alignment so the energy goes in an accurate direction. Is it?

I remember years ago receiving lessons from a direct Taiji Kase student, and ended up training not for kime but for right energy direction. I think perhaps was this concept. I remember ended up making even katas with no excesive contraction.

I think I can understand what the breakdancer video shows because I have tried some robot dance too. It's somehow similar to Bruce Lee or winchun practicers making fast drills.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Iain Abernethy wrote:
This “muscular emergency stop” is not what I call “kime” though. I tend to think of kime more as the co-ordinated use of the entire body coming together at the correct moment to ensure effectiveness. This convergence of forces is what I think of as being “kime” (i.e. focus).

A technique can therefore have kime without such muscular tension. Indeed, the blow that hits and takes the guy out can definitely be said to have plenty of “kime” … regardless of whether a brief tensing of the muscles was needed to decelerate the technique after the event or not.

Jose Garcia wrote:
From this words quoted above, should we understand there is the reason why many karatekas say too much "air" kihon can lead to a misuse and misleading of real kime? Does impact training prevent us from the common error of making a power-stopping kime? Or there is a way to practice Kihon (and Kata!) avoiding "false Kime"?

This is a great topic and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to clarify my thinking on kime.

As mentioned above, I think of “kime” as “the co-ordinated use of the entire body coming together at the correct moment to ensure effectiveness.” Therefore kihon, kata, pad work, partner drills, sparring, etc will all help develop this coordinated motion.

Too much air punching is a problem because “kime” is never objectively tested. A good instructor will be able to spot errors in the movement and give corrections to improve co-ordinated body motion; but ultimately that is a subjective and not an objective test. Pad work would be more objective test. Big impact results from good kime. Poor kime will result in poor impact.

It is also vital to understand contact with the target is made before the “end position”.  The brief muscular contraction at the end position in kata is simply there to protect the joints and ensure high acceleration through the target and sharp deceleration before hyperextension. It has nothing to do with increasing impact in and of itself (aside from avoiding the necessity to slow down sooner if hyperextended joints are to be avoided).

If contact was made with the target at the point of muscular contraction in kata (often incorrectly referred to as the “focus point” of “kime point”) then the arm would be almost straight and there would be no drive through the target.

Kata and kihon should contribute to the development of co-ordinated motion and the impact and effectiveness that follows. What is key though is the understanding that initial contact is made part way through the technique and not at the very end. Hit a pad once and this becomes obvious, and it is for this reason why impact work should always be a significant part of training. While there are some karateka who rarely hit things (something I really can’t get my head around!) it is my view that it should be a large part of training.

To use an analogy, I would suggest karate is a bit like baking a cake. Flour on its own does not taste great. But as part of a mix it produces something that nice to eat. Take the flour out, and you can’t make a cake. Kata on its own does not produce an effective karateka, but it is a vital part of the mix. Karate needs all the other ingredients too i.e. sparring, pad work, bunkai drills, etc. However, kata remains a key ingredient and if you take it out you no longer have karate.

Kata alone is not the only ingredient required for the development of kime. That would be like eating flour and expecting it to look, feel and taste like a cake. However, kata should be part of the mix … and it is only when it is part of the overall mix that its true value can be realised.

All the best,

Iain

ky0han
ky0han's picture

Hi everyone,

e wrote:
To use an analogy, I would suggest karate is a bit like baking a cake. Flour on its own does not taste great. But as part of a mix it produces something that nice to eat. Take the flour out, and you can’t make a cake. Kata on its own does not produce an effective karateka, but it is a vital part of the mix. Karate needs all the other ingredients too i.e. sparring, pad work, bunkai drills, etc. However, kata remains a key ingredient and if you take it out you no longer have karate.

Kata alone is not the only ingredient required for the development of kime. That would be like eating flour and expecting it to look, feel and taste like a cake. However, kata should be part of the mix … and it is only when it is part of the overall mix that its true value can be realised.

I really love this. How do you always come up with such great analogies? :o)

Here is Mitsusuke Haradas opinion on "Kime".

http://goo.gl/WPqHjT

I personally see it that way. If you hit someone with a punch and he gets knocked out your technique had Kime. If you throw someone onto the ground and he passes out your throw had Kime. It is the result that counts and not the way you achieve that goal. But in order to get great results your techniques have to be good in terms of muscular use and body structure, and taking the principle behind those techniques into account.

Regards Holger

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

ky0han wrote:
I really love this. How do you always come up with such great analogies? :o)

Thank you. I was pleased with it too. It’s the result of a pattern matching dysfunctional mind; that has found an obscure niche :-)

ky0han wrote:
If you hit someone with a punch and he gets knocked out your technique had Kime. If you throw someone onto the ground and he passes out your throw had Kime. It is the result that counts and not the way you achieve that goal. But in order to get great results your techniques have to be good in terms of muscular use and body structure, and taking the principle behind those techniques into account.

Totally agree!

All the best,

Iain

Jose Garcia
Jose Garcia's picture

Thank you all for the answers.

It's interesting to note that Mitsusuke Harada, like Egami, uses to practice kihon and kata ending the movements a little further (and apparently softer) than usual. This mean Harada does not "stop" the techique. For example in tsuki his students twist the fist a little more than usual after the knuckles become horizontal upwards. This means they think of the energy /movement of the technique not being ended but further penetrating. And this can be related to that demonstrations from Harada where he puts 3 karatekas in line and the last one feels his punch as he was hitting him/her directly. Harada punches are meant to unstopably penetrate.

Nice to hear about Harada Sensei in this topic. I was in a class from him once. I didnt understand all he was teaching back then but it changed my limited idea of kime and muscle use.

DaveB
DaveB's picture

Someone once gave a quote about proper punching technique from Jack Dempsey's book on boxing. The description matched JKA kime exactly and I suspect that this is where Nakayama got the idea. That being said I have no idea if he was doing it the way Dempsey did it or if it was passed down correctly. I have only just started the book (available free online), but it could so easily be about karate as it begins with the author bemoaning the lack of punching ability of modern (circa 1920) fighters as a result of over influence of sport and the loss of the self defense foundation for punching. That made me smile.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

DaveB wrote:
... it could so easily be about karate as it begins with the author bemoaning the lack of punching ability of modern (circa 1920) fighters as a result of over influence of sport and the loss of the self defense foundation for punching. That made me smile.

Yep! There is nothing new under the sun. One of my favourite examples of this is found in the 1936 book “Instructor’s Manual for Police Academy of Zhejiang Province” by Liu Jin Sheng.

The book contains the following quote about how people are forgetting about the practical applications of forms, etc (my highlighting):

“Also, individual training (mastering of forms, or TAO) is prevailed in those institutions but the applied aspect of techniques learnt is ignored. Therefore, if a man who has been exercising, say, even for twenty or thirty years and who engages a western boxer or a Japanese judo wrestler will be surely defeated. Striving for nice-looking movements without practical use and absence of fighting spirit are at the bottom of it. In this way we shall lose little by little all the heritage of our ancestors who brilliantly used all methods and techniques in combat.

Now foreigners say with a touch of irony that the Chinese martial art is nothing else but a dance with energetic movements. Our ancestors knew how to drill by twos, one against another, and alone. They were able to employ various techniques one after another in a fight, attacking continuously the enemy so that he had no time to defend himself, nothing to say about fighting back.”

Written 79 years ago, and yet the concern expressed about the overemphasis on aesthetics, a lack of application, and the loss of information seem very contemporary. It reads very much like something one of us would write on this forum. 

All the best,

Iain

Dennis Krawec
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Sorry for coming late to the party, but here's another viewpoint.

While the translated meaining of Kime is "decision", in all of the books in the series "Best Karate" by Masatoshi Nakayama in the section 'What Karate-Do is' he defines Kime.

"The essence of Karate techniques is Kime. The meaning of kime is an explosive attack to the target using the appropriate technique and maximum power in the shortest time possible" and also that "a technique lacking kime can never be regarded as true Karate". In the same section he refers  to. . . "ikken hissatsu meaning to 'kill with one blow', but to assume from this killing is the objective is dangerous and incorrect";

if you take this in context with 'Kime-Waza - decisive technique",Kime for the purpose of Karate is the focus of the power (speed, strength, mass - total potential energy) capable of being generated by the whole body being applied through 'proper' technique (strike, block kick throw) into the target as kinetic energy for the purpose of ending combat (if unavoidable) as efficiently as possible. So Kime is not just the nano second of tenseness at the moment of contact for a strike or block, but also should be part of the whole movement of a throw.

So to answer Ky0han's question "Is there any combative relevance?"  Yes, Kime is completely relevent, don't do Karate without it, or more accurately . . you're not doing Karate without it.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Dennis Krawec wrote:
So to answer Ky0han's question "Is there any combative relevance?"  Yes, Kime is completely relevant, don't do Karate without it, or more accurately . . you're not doing Karate without it.

That’s a really good post and I agree with the point made, but I think you’ve redefined the original question before answering. Holger (Kyohan) was asking specifically about muscle tension whereas you, quite rightly, pointed out the alternative way of viewing “kime”. That does change the nature of the discussion though. “Is there any combative relevance to tensing the muscles hard at the end of technique?” is a different question from “Should we commit to the moment with the most efficient technique possible?”

“Kime” means “to set”, “to fix”, “to decide upon”, “to conclude”. So we can use it to refer to both the “setting or fixing of the muscles” (as Holger did) or “deciding on the conclusive technique” (as you and Nakayama have).

I guess I it’s like the word “relax” in English. If I ask the question, “Should I try relax in when fighting?” it really depends upon what you mean by “relax”. If you mean “become less muscularly tense and mentally anxious” then the answer would be “yes”. If you mean “chill out and take some time for yourself” then the answer would be “no, definitely don’t do that”.

All the best,

Iain