Empty Hand. Kenei Mabuni

everyone can reach the same result if only the person’s karate practice is serious and continuing.

Karate as a Spiritual Martial Art

      Karate has changed more and more into a competition sport. This is one of the reasons why the number of women practicing karate mainly for self-defense has recently considerably decreased. But besides health care, self-defense was the original aim and is still a very important aspect of karate.

      When my father taught at the Meijō Girls College, he invented two special self-defense kata for girls. One was called Meijō kata according to the name of the school and meaning “bright star”. The other was called Aoyagi (green willow) referring to elegance and gentleness. These kata were made for real combat. They contain techniques against typical attacks towards women like embracing from the front or from behind, and punches that use the energy of the attacker. But these real-combat kata are very short and not appropriate for competition and therefore unfortunately not very popular in our days.

      Recently, I read an article in the newspaper Asahi Shimbun. It was about a high school boy in Ōsaka who was at home when a burglar came in and attacked him with a knife. But the boy was clever enough to evade the attack and managed to escape. Afterwards he told a reporter, “When I saw the knife my body reacted spontaneously. If I had not practiced karate I would have been paralyzed by fear.”

      To use karate for self-defense, it is not enough to study a number of techniques. One has to develop a special mental energy, ki,10 necessary to mobilize the abilities in the very moment they are needed, that is, just when one is confronted with sudden danger. No matter how often one may have practiced the techniques, without this energy one cannot make use of them. That is why the mental education is so important.

      The development of ki is important for all kinds of martial arts, such as jūdō, kendō or iaidō. The mental education is needed to get rid of any inner agitation or inner tensions and to become able to focus the whole mental energy on one point. Since karate is aiming at the ability to defend the own body with empty hands flexible mental energy is extremely important. For this reason one can consider karate as martial art of the soul (ki no budō).

      Of course the physical condition affects the general development of a person. It could be said that people who are lacking physical self-confidence are apt to mental and psychological weakness. Because karate practice develops the whole body, even people who begin in a rather weak condition can gain strong physical confidence after a short time, building the basis for mental and psychological strength.

      Of course the physical condition affects the general development of a person. It could be said that people who are lacking physical self-confidence are apt to mental and psychological weakness. Because karate practice develops the whole body, even people who begin in a rather weak condition can gain strong physical confidence after a short time, building the basis for mental and psychological strength.

The Breathing Techniques in Karate

      However timid and weak a person might have been, by regularly and seriously practicing karate – even if the practice is not very intense – one can experience how the body gradually fills with energy, how self-confidence grows from the ground of the abdomen and calmness installs in a quite natural way in the whole body. This is a particularity of karate.

      Especially the breathing techniques (kisoku hō) of the Naha-te are a good example to explain how karate strengthens the spiritual and mental unity.11 It goes without saying that breathing is important for all kinds of martial arts but its deliberate and systematic training is a special aspect of karate. Breathing, and in particular inhaling (iki o suru), is closely connected with life. The Japanese verb meaning “to live” (iki ru) is said to be derived form the expression “to take breath”. People can live without food for about a month. But as is well known, it is hard to survive without breathing.

      If one gets nervous in a situation of violence one will lose. Such nervousness comes from disturbances of pulse and blood pressure, which again are caused by breathing disturbances. For this reason some people get also nervous in front of a crowd. When things go wrong somehow and life is full of trouble one often feels depressed. Unconsciously breathing becomes short, flat and throat-centered. In the worst case, one breathes only with the tip of the nose, so to speak. If someone gets used to such kind of breathing he cannot expect to be blessed with a long life.

      In order to harmonize the soul one must harmonize breathing. Breathing deeply into the abdomen arranges the energies in the lower abdomen. If in this area everything is “well settled”, one has good reason to hope for a long life. The effects of correct breathing will be greater the better the breathing rules are understood and followed consciously. I studied several breathing techniques like those of yoga or qigong. According to them, holding the breath (taisoku) is harmful. But in karate it is regarded to be very reasonable. It strengthens the heart and improves the flexibility of breathing. I am now more than 80 years of age but I do not have any problems climbing a staircase and never grasp for air.

The State of Total Inner Calmness

      Karate practice develops body, spirit and fighting abilities. Since these three aspects of education are closely connected in the kata, kata training allows progress in all of them. This kind of learning is a real pleasure and can be a never-ending one.

      In the Edo period (17th to 19th century) the samurai of the Nabeshima fief on Kyūshū Island (now Saga prefecture) were educated on the basis of the famous warrior code Hagakure12. The first rule a samurai had to follow was about his attitude towards aging. This rule demanded that learning and practicing should never end. No matter which level of abilities a samurai may have reached, how high in the hierarchy he might be, there is no reason for conceit, no reason to stop learning and improving oneself. 13

      Those who learn only in order to win over others, to be better and stronger than others, are people who in fact learn for others. This is not the right way. A real master follows his way by continuously trying day by day, all his life, to improve himself. If one does not practice karate with joy so that nothing can stop oneself whatever people might say, this cannot be called true karate. Only if one enjoys practicing karate for oneself, not for others, if one cannot stop even if one would like to, one will experience karate as an endless path and reach a state of total concentration and inner silence.

      About such a state of deep concentration called zanmai,14 my father once wrote the following words: “I enjoy my mind getting empty while rowing to the island of bu«.15

      There is a Japanese term called gunshū meaning “learning by absorbing the smell”. It is based on the idea that the odor of an object is transmitted to the person steadily handling it. If one works with wood one will gradually acquire a wooden smell. What one does and thinks day by day finally becomes part of oneself, shapes the character and gives a certain “smell”. When my father was a policeman on Okinawa, visiting the karate masters at hidden places, teaching karate at the fishery school or attending karate performances, he always took me along and let me sit on his lap. That is maybe how I acquired his “smell”.

      I always remember my father stripped to the waist practicing with his comrades in the light of a naked bulb, encouraging each other and forgetting the world around them. After he had moved to Ōsaka, he never knew what the day would bring. Nevertheless he went on with his life devoted to the study of karate, spending time with his comrades with whom he often shared his food and shelter. He also took care of the tatami mats that were always worn fast by the practice of the karateka. When one of his students came home from the battlefields of the Pacific War unharmed, he was as happy as he was when I returned. All this is the “smell” of my father my body has absorbed and I shall never lose. I also shall go the way of my father, the way of karate, which has no end. I shall practice karate as long as my body can move, step-by-step, stage-by-stage. I cannot predict how far I will come. But I know that I shall move on as long as I can. Progressing and improving oneself, that is what really makes sense, provides pleasure and joy. This is special about budō karate, that kind of karate I would like to propagate and that