Considering Kime by Mark Groenewold
Students will often hear from their karate teacher, “More kime! More ki-me! Focus and tense! Where is your kime?” or some variation on that.
Kime, in a purely linguistic sense, comes from the Japanese word kimeru, which means, “to decide”. The Japanese use the word kimeru much like English speakers use the word “decide”, as in “I haven’t decided what to wear today”, or “Did you decide what you will do with your future, young man?” There has sometimes been much ado about kime in karate circles, drifting through cyberspace and elsewhere, but permit me a some time and space here in these lines to provide you with a perspective on this matter. Kime, in the Japanese sense, but even more specifically in a Japanese karate sense, does not merely mean kimeru, as in “I decided on scrambled eggs rather than boiled for breakfast”. Kime, in the context of karate means much more than that. Although a direct translation into English is not possible, the word still has potent meaning.
So what is this kime? Is it a mystical/spiritual experience, some kind of metaphysical occurrence when Aquarius reaches Uranus while you are standing at the makiwara? Nah. It’s nothing like that. Kime is, instead better described along both physical and psychological lines. Kime is when both the body and brain are executing sharp, crisp, penetrating, and hard technique that utilizes the entire person. Kime is when technique is “grounded”, when it “comes up through the floor”, where the body’s entire musculature is used in a sudden explosive moment, and also when the mind is linked to the technique.
It might be better to describe technique that has no kime in hopes of better understanding what kime really is. It is like describing something that is hot by describing cold things, a kind of description of opposites to understand what we are driving at. Theologians are often caught describing what the essence of goodness is by contrasting it to what is held as evil.
Hmm... I am afraid that we may be on a slippery slope but let’s try this anyway.
Technique that has no kime are often times when the heel of the foot rises off the floor, or when the hips don’t snap into place at the right time during punches. Techniques with no kime are where body flab puts you off balance. Technique with no kime may be when your back is not straight as you stand in zenkutsu-dachi. Technique that has no kime may be when the retracting hand is weak, when the punching hand over-extends unnecessarily, when the shoulders are too tight and makes technique tentative, or when the course of the punch is not straight and is shaky and bobbing at the end of your arm.
Those are some of the physical instances where kime cannot be “activated” because the body through which karate technique is trying to be performed is ill-fit, or misaligned, or presently not a good “conductor” to technique which possesses it. Kime is primarily physical, so if the body is “out of whack” there is no real way for the karate practitioner to “finish” or have “decisiveness” in anything. Fix your stance, relax your body, and move slowly to make sure you are moving correctly.
Kime is sudden. Kime is a technique, which is “finished to completion”. Perhaps a physical description may be of some service here. As I have been teaching karate more and more over the years I have noticed a common problem with karate students in being too “stiff”, too “hard” in their shoulders and necks as they stand in zenkutsu-dachi executing various technique. Excellent karate stances are strong, but they primarily utilize only the muscles needed for stances. Students should ensure that despite the fact that their stance is locked solid their shoulders should be relaxed, fluid, and ready to move.
When an excellent karateka moves forward, it looks a bit like a smooth single motion, like a piston moving horizontally. The shoulders are relaxed, the neck is relaxed, the body accelerates forward, the elbow is close to the body, the fist moves forward, stretching forward, the punching hand accelerates, and at the end of the technique, at the final critical instant when the fist turns over and the knuckles turn, only then does the entire body—from heels to knuckles, become a single rock-solid unit. Everything is locked out in a perfectly delivered punch. Kerpow! Kime!
Have you ever noticed in your karate class that kime only comes up as a topic for improvement in punches and blocks? Have you noticed the absence of kime in front-snap kicks, side-snap kicks, round-house kicks, or anything that requires jumping? Kime doesn’t seem to apply there. All karate is not kime, but that which is, is something that makes the body feel like a single solid weapon, something “rooted”, something “coming up out of the floor” and through you into someone or something else. This is a good way for beginners, and teachers too, to consider what kime is, and how we should find its foundation.
But kime is also possible outside the constraints of textbook karate technique. Looking at the master instructors of karate there is no doubt that there is variation. In many photos we can see the different positions of hips, we see heels coming off the floor during technique, we see extended shoulders in punching, and yet these people maintain excellent full-body connected execution of technique. There is still kime, there is still complete decisiveness.
With truly masterful karate guys, kime is something that they seem to have in endless supply, something that they bend to fit all their technique. It is a well of power they seem to dip into endlessly, but let’s not wax too eloquently in metaphysical terms to describe it too much. This is not “THE FORCE,” it is perfect basics on fire.
The fundamentals of punches and kicks that your instructors harass you about are for your own development of karate physique and mentality. They are, if they are good instructors, gearing you up for developing kime in your karate. When you are able to consistently have kime in your punches, blocks, and kicks and have “mastered” some of the basics of our martial art, then you can start to deviate from the text.
Maybe karate is quite a bit like music. You need to develop your basics of scales, tone, and rhythm. Once you have some of that material cold you can start to deviate and experiment with your own style based on your own body, temperament, and sensibilities. Kime may be something like hitting the perfect note, full and heavy with tone and meaning. Perhaps that is one of the best ways to consider kime. Perhaps kime is better described as a “punctuated note” in karate. Exact, perfect, and in synch with your whole body.
Music is fun, but great music is also an experience in total concentration, yet with a feeling of “effortlessness”, mastery, and the transcendence of the music to make it personal, and transferable outwards.
But it is critical to do the basics first. There is nothing worse than a mediocre jazz musician who plays the same tiresome phrases and rhythms over and over again when performing. They get a couple of “nifty” phrases under their belts and figure they’ve got it all “wrapped up”. Well they haven’t. It’s boring and mindless, and not great music.
The best musicians still practice their scales, develop their tone, and stick to basics. The best karateka and teachers still move up and down the floor doing oi-zuki, do things like 3 or 5 step sparring, and work through the Heian katas. The basic material feeds the advanced stuff. Maybe it is like a tree that needs to make sure that the trunk and branches are well cared for so that the furthest leaves and twigs can reach for the sun. Kime is rooted in the basics, and there is no real magic to it at all. Hard to do, hard to “get in that zone”, but still attainable and reachable for the karate practitioner who sticks close to the fundamentals of good karate.
May everything you do, on and off the dojo floor be packed full of kime. Be decisive, strong, focussed, and rooted in the “basics” of things.
