What does spirit in our training mean? What do we mean when we say that a particular karateka is spirited or won the Award for Best Spirited Fighter? What does it mean to display spirit in everyday life?
In “What is Karate “ Sosai states:” Always more vital to karate than techniques or strength is the spiritual element that lets you move and act with complete freedom.” “The man who wants to walk the way of karate cannot afford to neglect Zen and spiritual training”. What does this mean? Or still how do we get to address these aspects of our training?
For me spiritual means expressing your will or willpower, but honestly without restrictive desires or thoughts. Bruce Lee states:”Martail Arts is about honestly expressing oneself without pretense…this is extremely difficult to do!” In a tournament the fighter who lets it all go, who fights with a determination, a will, that no matter what, he will not stop pouring all his efforts into a wholly committed way – this is a spirited fighter. It’s a never give up determined will power expression.
How do we build this spirit? Again for me it’s built through consistent hard training at the dojo. It’s made under pressure, it’s when your body feels pain, or discomfort or dead tired, but you push through…with a certain action..the kiai! Kiai is explosive breathing with a primal shout from the depth of your being. Try to do challenging tameshiware without a kiai. Try to kick a baseball bat or punch through 3 or more one inch rough pine timber boards or a pile of roof tiles. Can this be done without kiai? The truth is tameshiware always hurts. I have seen many fighters break their fists when doing the Seiken strike during tournaments. It hurts, but it’s not minding the pain, overcoming the fear of both pain and failure. And this is only achieved with kiai! In that moment you are at one in the state of Zen, there is only pure thoughtless expression. This psychological “space” is at the centre of Kyokushin karate which is real Budo Karate. A spirited fighter enters into this void, this space and is able to go beyond the limitations which his bodily pain and fear in his mind may want to impose on him. You cannot get here by praying to a “God” to put you there …or give you the Victory. Remember the Christian God has all of mankind as his children, so if you pray to him, so has your opponent…why should he change his grand plan for two people wanting him to push their own selfish way? No, in reality it’s through your efforts that you grow in your training and you are able to enter the Void, the place of pure natural expression beyond limitation of your thoughts. Ok, for the religions types, God helps those who really help themselves.
Back to the dojo...the place of sweat and kiai! Shihan Kenny Uytenbogaardt at his Bellville dojo would stop the class if the kiai was not loud and strong. Even as children he emphasized this aspect. Simple…a weak kiai attracted star jumps! It would be 10 only if the kiai was strong. He would say that people out on the street should hear it. They should be in awe, they should feel its power. Sometimes we would do 20 jumps or more, but we always tried to shatter our throats to limit the jumps and the pain in the legs. Anytime during class if the kiai sagged off, it would be star jump time.
At uchi deshi class with Sosai on a Thursday afternoon at Honbu, the kiai had to be very strong, Sosai tolerated nothing less. He would utter some very powerful words which the tone alone made you dig deep! In fact the last time the uchi deshi saw him alive was a few days before he passed on. We were doing morning training and suddenly we heard his powerful voice from above. There his head was in the small window, probably the landing of the staircase, he wanted to know why the kiai was weak. We cranked it up to full volume in response.
So when things get tough in the dojo or in a fight, let your kiai go from the depths and let it happen by itself. (As Bruce Lee says in “Enter the Dragon”).
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