Flowing, with Sudden Intensity

By: Jason Kraus

Too many people think of movement in karate like Lego models or action figures. Watch any martial arts movie or television program and witness how karate is viewed. Watch most tournament kata. All very stiff and linear. Robotic. Hollow. Even high-level practitioners make that same mistake. Often instructors inculcate that pattern of movement and limited understanding into the karate they teach. It may be a byproduct of large-scale classroom instruction of an art that is best learned in a small-scale environment or maybe even the instructor’s own understanding is limited.

In their defense, often an instructor stops learning at some point and loses the fire to develop their own karate.

Rigidity in karate is to be avoided.

Karate is perceived as very linear in attack and defense, in movement and intent. But that the perception that karate is linear is not complete. It’s a misnomer. Replace “linear” with “focused” and the more possibilities of the art reveal themselves. Being rooted to the ground – which is a fundamental state in karate – should only be momentary, long enough to connect your body to the earth to deliver a technique or techniques, then fluid again. A karateka should never stand rooted in front of the adversary and exchange techniques or trade punches. Doing so ensures that only the toughest and strongest prevail. Given that karate is a self-defense fighting art, it is logical to assume that the karateka’s opponent will be the aggressor and aggressors rarely attack people larger and stronger than them.

Karate is a flow state, punctuated by explosions of violence.

Anchor to the ground briefly, the very minimum amount of time to connect, to deliver devastating techniques, then use that return energy to move or to deliver another technique.

As every technique in karate prepares the body to deliver the next, use that energy to move just as one would use the energy to strike. This is something about karate that many karateka never actually learn. There is no pause, there is no stop. There is only firing the technique and using the return energy within your body to reload the next.

A karate technique is like an ocean wave. The energy of that instant of kinetic force is a product of everything happening below the surface.

If you do not understand this, train at Missouri Karate Association and eventually you will. Related: Change It Up

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Jason Kraus is a lifelong martial artist. Jason spent decades in various martial arts including traveling to and living in both Japan and Korea. He has most recently returned to his first love, Shotokan Karate and trains at Missouri Karate Association.