Читать книгу Martial Arts Training in Japan. A Guide for Westerners онлайн

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Finally, kumite is the battlefield where basic techniques as well as the myriad transitions from one technique to another learned in kata training come together in the spontaneous act of sparring, or kumite. Karate dojo can differ quite a lot on the degree to which they emphasize kumite over kata. In some dojo, kumite is a minor component of training, and kata is given great weight. In others, the situation is reversed. The common thread will be kihon waza. This is the heart of any budo.

Look at kata, kihon waza, and kumite as you would look at a tree. We see it because of light, but we don’t know what we see without the dark that sets off the light. Try looking at the shadows of a tree and not the lighted parts. I think that in karatedo kata is something like that. In kata I see students hurrying from one light point to the next, but the string that holds it all together, the transitional movements, is reacted to almost as a nuisance. A mature student understands that the light’s brightness is directly related to the quality of the surrounding darkness. A technique in any art is only as good as the support brought to bear in the actualizing of the technique’s goal. You must set your hips correctly before your punch or kick has any meaning. It is the spaces that make solid things useful, as the Tao Te Ching shows us. What is a window without an opening? It is what is not there in a cup that makes it useful. Can a doorway be solid? The name karate means the hand is empty in the way that the universe is empty, i.e. full of promise and possibilities.