kiai

What’s with all the shouting in karate?

By: Matthew Cheng, SFU student One of the biggest questions people have about karate is why practitioners yell when they punch or kick. They do it to practice kiai (pronounced “key-eye”) — the official word to describe the sounds heard when performing an attacking strike. “Two Japanese characters make up the word: Ki means ‘energy,’ and ai means ‘to unify.’” It’s essentially the “convergence of your energy.” To perform a kiai, athletes need to exhale during the technique instead of holding their breath. If an athlete holds their breath, their muscles will tighten up. This tension makes the body slow…

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