“karate ni sente nashi” (there is no first hand in karate) Funakoshi Gichen, “The Twenty Precepts of Karate-do
” In facing an enemy with a sword in your hands, it is crucial that you intend to cut the enemy, no matter what.You may block your opponent’s sword, you may strike it, touch it, push it or simply parry it, but these actions are simply a setup for the main purpose of cutting your opponent down” “the attitude-no attitude teaching” in the Water Book of Go Rin No Sho by Miyamoto Musashi.
The two quotes above, while discussing different topics and actually addressing different concepts, still seem to contradict each other. Funakoshi Sensei appears to be suggesting some sort of Christian “turn the other cheek” approach to life, while Musashi is appears to be promoting some sort of Machiavellian “the end justifies the means” approach to conflict. My take on this is “no” the first and “yes” to the second. I believe “karate ni sente nashi” is actually imploring the karateka to avoid conflict whenever possible and to never look for fights simply for the sake of fighting. I do not for a second believe that Funakoshi Sensei is telling us to always allow the other guy to swing first; that strategy of reactive rather than pro-active and by definition it is weak. Musashi, on the other hand, is not suggesting mindless aggression but he is suggesting a pro-active strategy in which every movement in a fight is serving the greater strategy of eventual victory. Musashi spent most of his life fighting for survival in hundreds of live blade contests while Funakoshi was a school teacher. In my opinion Musashi has better credentials with regards to fighting, so I will tend to quote him heavily throughout the sections I will dedicate to kumite.
Let’s start with some full disclosure: I really am poor at sport kumite. Just about anyone can and has scored on me . Perhaps my very failure at kumite has led me to study it closely and learn just about every drill you can imagine to improve my performance. Unfortunately, it is probably my intellectual study of kumite that has destroyed my kumite: I am thinking about strategy while my opponent is punching my lights out. Thinking while fighting is not conducive to winning. On the other hand, I am also a very solidly built fellow and my rabid pit-bull approach to kumite has severely limited my pool of potential opponents: lots of people may have scored on me, but,having survived one encounter, none of them have ever asked for a rematch.
Coming back to the concept of “basic principles” of karate. I defined a principle as “a concept that always holds true, regardless of the situation”. I personally believe that there is one, and only one, principle in kumite: your goal in every match must be to lead your opponent. Note how I said that: “lead your opponent”. I am not suggesting that you must be the aggressor or that you must hit first; I am suggesting that absolutely everything you do in a kumite match must serve your strategy while eroding that of your opponent. The concept of “taking the lead” must be the guiding principle of kumite; allowing the opponent to always initiate and lead is a deficient and weak strategy in which you will always be playing catch-up and will likely eventually get caught. Of course, the term “taking the lead” can be interpreted in many apparently contradictory ways.
The key issue we all need to understand is the term “kyo”, which is a very nice Japanese term for vulnerable to attack. The opposite of “kyo” would be “jitsu”, or on guard. Any successful attack needs the opponent to be in a state of “kyo” to succeed; if they are truly are prepared for our attack, they will capably defend it and likely counter-attack successfully. Obviously, the perfect goal of kumite must be to for ourselves to remain constantly in a state of jitsu, while capitalizing on every moment of kyo in our opponent. We also need to recognize that there are three types of “kyo”: avoidable natural kyo, unavoidable natural kyo, and created kyo. By understanding this important point, the capable karateka can develop an entire strategy and training program around it.
Avoidable natural kyo is almost always due to a momentary loss of intent and focus on the part of the karateka. The most common form of avoidable natural kyo has to be pure loss of focus. Examples of this would be the opponent who daydreams while sparring. I would be a perfect example of this; while sparring I tend to plan and strategize, losing myself in my plans for brief moments. Unfortunately, those brief moments often leave me open to attack; my opponent recognizes a slight pause in my focus, a lift in my stance and a failure to react appropriately as they adjust their distance into a lethal range. Often, by the time I have come back to the mats, my opponent has crept inside my defenses and can launch just about any attack successfully. All of us can remember matches that we lost by that mystical, “came out of nowhere” punch; we were daydreaming and our opponent “crossed at the ford” when he spotted our lapse. Perhaps a more subtle form of this lapse is when ourselves or our opponent fails to maintain an appropriate distance as the fighting heats up; often we see fighters closing the gap as tensions build, but neither recognizing the potential for attack. I have all sorts of pictures of kumite where either fighter was in a clear position for a successful take-down or sweep, but neither attempted to do so because both were concentrating on simply exchanging punches. Clearly to miss a devastating technique such as a sweep is a mental loss of kyo. Another example of “avoidable kyo” would be the fighter who loses his cool and becomes too reactive to the opponent. Consider the “hyper-reactive” fighter who jumps at every feint, blocks at every move or attacks at the slightest provocation. This type of fighter is easily led and easily flustered. When I face someone like this, I have found it to be quite worthwhile to just loudly “kiai” out of the blue and attack when my opponent startles and reacts. I am merely taking advantage of their natural weakness and that is all part of taking the lead. On the other hand, another form of natural kyo would be a temporary loss of balance; a slip on the floors or mats. We see this often, especially during a long match when the floor is getting a bit slippery with sweat. Often, when one fighter slips and is left open, his opponent fails to recognize a clear opportunity and capitalize. Both these actions are moments of kyo: the man who slips is physically kyo while the man who stands still and fails to attack is mentally kyo. Finally, I would say that physical or mental exhaustion are forms of avoidable natural kyo; both can be successfully overcome by fitness and proper training ( breath control maybe??).
Unavoidable natural kyo is a term that many karateka absolutely fail to recognize; many believe that they can maintain absolute readiness no matter what the circumstances. Unfortunately, this inability to recognize this gap in our defenses both leaves us open to attack and deprives us of a potential for attack. The truth of the matter is that there is a gap between absolutely every technique and movement we make: we are essentially kyo when we are in transition. In my mind I see two different illustrations of this concept: a common zipper on clothing and an ocean wave. The zipper analogy would look like this: each tooth on the zipper would represent a technique at full kime, where the fighter is fully loaded and prepared (and about to) fire into another technique. The space between each tooth becomes that point of transition where the fighter is committed and moving into a follow up technique. The key for each fighter is to spot those gaps in techniques and either minimize their own gaps or capitalize on their opponent’s gaps. The ocean wave analogy is very similar in visuals: the peaks of the waves would represent moments of complete readiness while the troughs would represent open moments of transition between the peaks. Now take this back to application in kumite. The first point of transition in the enemy might be that moment when the opponent mentally shifts from defense mode to attack mode. If one recognizes that moment (perhaps our opponent has a telegraph such as he changes his breathing pattern or he fails to use “tension-release” training and he has to wind up each technique) you can often attack at that moment successfully. This is an example of that much sought after “sen sen no sen” timing: attacking just as our enemy forms the intent to attack. The second point of transition might be during the flow of the first attack: the opponent commits to an attack and we, anticipating that attack, respond with our defense with interception timing. The key point here is that I am not discussing either a block or a strike, I am merely discussing intercepting the incoming attack with a technique of your own as the enemy is on their way in. This timing might be an example of sen timing (simultaneous attack or ai-uchi) or early go-no-sen timing. Another point of natural kyo might be merely when the karateka is shifting or stepping: while you are moving it is very difficult or impossible to alter direction which leaves you open to an attack timed to hit you in flight. The best example of this might be the fool who tries to launch a jumping kick in competition: once he is in flight he can hardly shift his vector to avoid a well timed counter-attack. The final transition point comes between techniques: jab-punch, block-punch, kick-punch, punch-block or simply attack and shift to guard. No matter what, no matter how good you think you are, those transition points are there, ready to be exploited.
Once the fighter recognizes the presence of unavoidable natural kyo, he can train himself to minimize his own kyo points. Now here is where I really feel vindicated in writing this text: by correct basic training you can minimize kyo while maximizing effective techniques. For example, the second transition point I discussed above, the initiation of the first attack technique, is an illustration of where proper, dedicated basic training becomes essential. In basic training not only does the fighter learn how to move very quickly with little telegraphing (thus shortening the transition) we also learn the most effective range and distance for our techniques. If we know our distancing instinctively then we not only know the most effective distance to attack from to keep our transition period to a minimum, we also learn the most effective defense distance to hopefully maximize the enemy’s transition period. Consider the proper use of breathing, hikite and kime. I discussed the concept of kime being merely a infinitely small moment of time at which the technique is finished and the body is poised, ready to perform the next technique. We literally bounce out of one technique and into the next. releasing our potential energy from the loaded hikite. Everything we do in the technical end of training feeds into the applications end of training by narrowing that gap between techniques. It all starts with the concept that the finish of one technique is merely the beginning of the next. The speed of the techniques not only increases the power and effectiveness of their impact, it shortens the distance between the wave peaks. We need to train our kihon with this intent in mind. We also need to consider those “gaps” carefully as they represent the openings in the opponents defenses and our opportunity for attack.
The gaps or transition points represent opportunity and the strategist not only should how to consider taking advantage of those gaps, he should consider how to extend those gaps to increase his window of opportunity. The majority of the strategies and training drills I will likely cover over the next several segments will have to deal with either creating or extending the natural gaps in our opponent’s defenses. We need to create kyo; to do this we need to take advantage of both normal human nature and the individual nature of our opponent. Hopefully I will touch base on any number of topics and match a drill with each of those topics. On the other hand why would you read the comics when you can appreciate a masterpiece? I wholly recommend that every serious fighter read and digest “Go Rin No Sho” by Miyamoto Musashi . I personally have FIVE translations. The best versions I have found to be either the direct translation by Victor Harris (Overlook Press, 1974) or the annotated version by Hidy Ochiai(Overlook Press 2001). There are hopelessly trashy versions out there too, so look out. There are many people that try to read more into “Go Rin No Sho” than is really there; it is best to remember that this was a book dictated by an ailing old hermit in a wet, dark, cold cave to a fawning student. Musashi was not a complicated philosopher, he was a war hardened killer of men, so he most likely meant literally what he said rather than some deeper concepts. I also recommend a read of “The Art of War” by Sun Tsu. This does not apply very well to karate, but it is absolutely worthwhile to compare and contrast the two manuals of strategy and realize that the strategy of the individual can and does apply to the many if you can think outside the envelope.
Before we leave this introduction to kumite altogether, I would like to address one last time the concept that “karate ni sente nashi” does NOT mean that we should let every opponent throw the first punch before we defend ourselves. I believe the nature of the first five kata the Shotokan style learns pretty much contradicts that concept. The astute karateka will notice that each of these kata start with a block. Not just any block though; this is a stepping-in or intercepting block. Each of these introductory kata (Heian kata one through five) is actually introducing, in no uncertain terms, the concept of early interception of an attack with a “stopping” block. In fact, the first movement in these beginner’s kata could actually be considered to be a “sen” timing attack rather than a block: the opponent dares to initiate an attack and the karateka defends himself with a pre-emptive interception of the attack early in the transition period. This strategy cannot be reactive defense where the fighter awaits the overt attack, this strategy is a pro-active defense where the fighter anticipates the attack and intercepts it early on the incoming vector, reacting off the unconscious telegraphs of the enemy rather than the overt movement. The nature of the Heian kata make my point for me: the primary strategy of karate is that of taking the lead from the start of the conflict. We start training the strategy from our first class; it’s unfortunate we often do not recognize this fact until very late in our training.
