Читать книгу Empty Hand. The Essence of Budo Karate онлайн

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The masters of Shuri-te took up the idea of a “deadly first strike”. But there is no such idea in Chinese kempō where the ruling principle is called “searching for the hands and legs” (tanshu tantai), that is first testing the technical abilities of the opponent and studying each other. The opponents begin from higher positions (kamae), reduce the distance step by step and finally adopt lower kamae. After each clash the opponents retreat. Then they approach and fight again so that in this way a rather spectacular and dramatic action develops. But this is only possible because in Chinese kempō the empty hand is not a sword.

On the opposite, karate is a martial art developed to defend oneself against an enemy who could be assumed of being educated in the Jigen style and able to carry out the first strike on the “cloud-of-flames” level. It was a question of survival to correctly evaluate the first strike of the swordsman and at the same time to instantly perform the deadly strike. So it can be said that master Matsumura and master Itosu perfected the Shuri-te under the influence of the Japanese sword techniques, in particular that of the Jigen style.