The Karate Kiai or Shout! What Is It?

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Kiai 気合 is a Japanese term used in karate for a short spirited shout, that is used to focus energy when performing an attacking or defending move.

The term kiai is a combination of Ki (life force), and Ai (meaning to blend or harmonize).

These are just my views on the karate kiai, I am sure other karateka will have differing views, but for me, Kiai is a focused short shout that concentrates physical, mental and emotional power into one point, at one time, but more importantly it helps develop a strong spirit.

Master Gichin Funakoshi the founder of Shotokan Karate said, ‘Sprit First, Technique Second’.

My sensei used to say ‘if you ever get attacked and knocked to the ground, it will be your spirit that will leave you there, or get you back up, and if your spirit is weak, you are in trouble!’

 Kiai, or shout. What's that all about? So when you first go to the dojo, and you got your white belt on, your first lesson, and the high grades start training, suddenly you hear all these, ah, ah, these screams and shouts. You're like, what the heck is that? That's the kiai. So what is kiai? Well, it's not yaa, or some people say kiai.

Kiai means shout. My instructor explained this to me, and I was a teenager. And he said to me, your kiai is your spirit. It develops your spirit. And it's your spirit that will save you. In the street, in a terrible situation, if you get knocked down to the ground, it's your spirit that will get you back up.

So when you're in the dojo, you train your spirit with ki ai. And I, oh sensei, I understood that. Okay, so I ki ai strong and fast on the, on, say on the last technique of a combination, or on the halfway point of a kata, or the last move of a kata. Ki ai really strong, focus, ah! And that develops strong spirit.

And he said, yes, that develops strong spirit on your kumite, when you counter kiai, that develops strong spirit. Then, if you're in a street situation and you get clonked and you hit the deck, you should be bouncing back up on your feet. And it's your spirit that will get you back up. And if you've got weak spirit, you'll stay on the ground and they'll stomp on your head.

And if you've got strong spirit, you bounce back up. Obviously, that may not quite work like that, but if you You've got to develop your spirit. So the kiai is to develop your spirit. Some of my senior masters that I train with, they don't kiai. They don't kiai. They've gone past that. It's almost like a silent kiai, but the focus and intent is there.

So you know, on a kiai, there's different sorts of kiai, but the kiai wants to be short. There is a kata where we do a longer kiai, but in general, kiais are short. Hey, and they come from the stomach. Hey, and it's a short, loud, sharp key. I so key eyes are not just a shell Yeah, that's just weak enough for the chest and that's up in the air.

Yeah, just weak from down below deep inside focus commitment spirit So, and a good time. So when my instructor would be driving us really hard and we'd be training for hours, he would just shout out more spirit and we would just, Oh, and then Kiai even louder. And it would really develop and build our spirit.

So you want to create a strong spirit by using Kiai. So that's what Kiai is for, to develop a really strong spirit. I hope that helps. Osu!