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THE
FOUR CORNERSTONES
The
building blocks of karate
As with anything
of substance Shotokan karate is based upon a strong
foundation.
Like a forty-two
story office building standing tall and proud, Shotokan
karate is supported by four cornerstones without which it
could not have stood the test of time. These four
building blocks are: a proper stance, proper posture,
proper balance and proper "kime" or focus.
Without these
four basic building blocks working in harmony with each
other, equally weighted, and equally given their due, you
will never learn to develop your techniques to their full
potential, and thus you will never have any hope of truly
understanding let alone mastering, the art of Shotokan
karate.
STANCE
Your
stance is the platform upon which everything else is
built.
It is the
beginning, middle, and end of all that you will do as a
Shotokan karate-ka. More than any other style of karate
Shotokan is noted for it’s long low stances which,
when practiced correctly, are very effective at creating
a low centre of gravity, promoting good stability, and
fostering strong muscular development.
Early on in your
karate training you will quickly be made aware of the
fact that landing in a poor stance, however momentarily,
will create a level of instability that will prevent you
from making any effective defensive or offensive
movements, while at the same time you will be leaving
yourself open to a successfully attack or counter attack
from your opponent.
Given such an
opening even a junior belt properly trained will seize
upon the moment and may be virtually assured of victory
due to your lack of stability and strength.
Without
a proper stance nothing else is possible.
POSTURE
Your
posture says it all.
From walking
down the street, to sitting in a business meeting, or
simply driving in your car. In your daily life how you
carry yourself says a lot about who you are. Throughout
our early childhood we were all told to sit up straight,
to stand up properly, to keep our head up, and to watch
where we were going. Today how you personally hold
yourself, how you carry yourself when you move, and how
you focus on your surroundings, depends largely on how
well you have taken these early lessons to heart.
In Shotokan
karate it is vital that you learn to always center your
torso over your hips when you move. If you can remain
conscious of this fact, especially when shifting from one
stance to another, then by combining good hip movement
with proper posture and balance you will create a strong
vertical center, thus making smooth rapid movements
possible and effective.
The hips should
be considered the steering wheel of your body.
You
will quickly come to learn that poor posture equates to
poor everything else.
BALANCE
Good
balance is the result of a proper thought.
In karate from
the moment you start to move from one stance to another,
or from one technique to another, you are essentially
risking all that you have in the hope of achieving
something better. This period of transition often lasts
for less than a split second of time, a time in which
balance plays the role of the sun, acting as the center
of your universe around which all of your other actions
must revolve. Without proper balance a successful out
come in anything karate related is virtually impossible.
Balance,
however, can never be achieved unless the scales are even.
While your technique and skill will weigh heavily on one
side of the scale, they must in turn be equally balanced
by the mental and spiritual side of your being. In karate
trying to perform any movement or technique requires a
level playing field, one in which each function must be
awarded just the right amount of concentrated effort
necessary to make the whole thing work as you intended it
to.
Balance is the
sum of all movement added together.
Only
when the body, mind, and spirit are in complete harmony
can proper balance be achieved.
KIME
Kime
is the sum of all your efforts.
The concentrated
focus of all your physical, mental, and spiritual actions
combined at a specific moment and place in time is called
kime. The moment you make any kind of movement in karate
your true level of kime will be reflected in the accuracy
and quality of your techniques and any errors in
judgement will then be clearly visible for everyone else
to see. If your kime is found lacking then in effect
nothing you just did should be considered real. No amount
of strength, no amount of speed, and no amount of kiai
can ever make up for a lack of kime.
In your training
you must believe in what you are doing, and that belief
must have a definitive beginning and ending, an ending
that you will find you can only reach by putting all of
your other thoughts aside and focusing for as long as it
takes to achieve your goal. Without this all encompassing
belief in the success of what you are attempting to do
your techniques will become nothing more than physical
actions without any mental substance, in a world where
mental substance is often the difference between victory
or defeat.
Without kime
your karate has no value.
Kime
is only effective when nothing else matters.
- So there you
have it, the four basic fundamentals without which your
karate will not develop properly.
-
- So train hard,
train often, and make these fundamentals the basis for
everything you do in the dojo.
-
-
- Remember
- Stance,
posture, balance, and kime,
- are
the foundation upon which you must build.
-
- Part
the clouds - see the way
-
- "The
objective of karate is to contribute to the evolution
- of
the human spirit through physical and mental training."
- Sensei
Peter Lindsay
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