Seido students are also taught to develop an inner awareness for avoiding potentially threatening situations.
Finally, the study of karate develops discipline and concentration, skills that are useful for children, students, artists and men and women in all walks of life. Students usually notice subtle changes in the way they do their work or in the way they study. If one practices sincerely, in time, these benefits flow almost automatically, without conscious effort.
These are the direct, tangible benefits of studying karate, and they are all highly relevant to the needs of people today. Don’t study karate to achieve these benefits, though. If you practice in a sincere manner, these things will come along the way. They can each or together be reasons for beginning, but if they become the reason for practicing, our practice will become stale after some time.
“Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the limit of its elements before moving in it, the bird or this fish will not find its way or its place.” Genjokoan
The main thing is to begin; once a student has begun the study of karate, the only thing is to practice, to continue. The rest will become apparent to you, and to you alone.
In the tea ceremony (Sado), the guest takes time to appreciate and enjoy a cup of green tea. In life, too, we have to take time.
Breathing Methods
Master Nakamura Practicing the Martial Art of Iai
The student of the martial arts can enhance concentration and develop a sense of peace and tranquility through the disciplined practice of the one-pointed technique.
Life is breath. Breath is life. When someone is dead, we say, “He has stopped breathing.” Breathing is a natural function. No one teaches a baby how to breathe, yet a baby breathes easily and fully, its belly rising and falling in easy rhythms. The central role of the breath is strange and mystical to the twentieth century Western mind. Indian yogis believe that we partake of the energy, or essence, of life (prana) through breathing; in fact, they feel that our lives are measured by a certain number of breaths, each one taken bringing us closer to the end of our bodily function. In the Old Testament of the Bible, when God created the earth, he “breathed” upon the waters. In the everyday world, Japanese business schools teach their students, when involved in complicated or contentious negotiations, to control their breathing and to understand the pattern of the person on the opposite side of the table.
In Zen, posture is the key. If the posture is good, then the breathing will follow. We shall begin to experience once again what we knew as babies. However, it is useful to talk about certain breathing methods, techniques and mechanics of breathing. Physicians, and sports trainers in recent times, have studied and described the physiology and mechanics of breathing.
Basically, most of us breathe too often, and the breath is too shallow. Hence, the foul air in the lower part of our lungs is never fully expelled. Conversely, on the intake cycle, our lungs are never filled up much beyond a third of their actual volume. A doctor would say that we are not using more than a fraction of our “vital capacity.” Hence, the whole process of oxygen exchange in our bloodstream is inefficient. The blood is improperly cleansed of carbon dioxide, and our brains and nervous systems are never fully oxygenated. The deleterious effects manifest themselves physically, mentally and emotionally.
An average person at rest completes 15-18 breathing cycles per minute (a cycle is one inhalation plus one exhalation). Although this feels natural and comfortable, Zen masters say this is too fast. When you sit in zazen, you must let your breath “sit” also. An experienced practitioner can breath quite normally at five cycles per minute, some even slower. Quite a difference!
The Zen concept of breathing is tied up with the concept of hara, roughly equivalent to the belly. Western people, whose behavior is dominated by the frontal lobes of the brain, have their breath centered in the upper parts of their bodies. They tend to breathe with their shoulders and necks. This shallow breathing is called “intercostal breathing.” In Zen, we are taught to center the breath in the hara; in karate, the body is centered in the tanden, a spot about four fingers directly below the navel. It is the center around which our arms, legs and bodies move.
IBUKI
A Student has filled his lungs with air, starting with lower abdomen. Now he begins the exhalation.
B With mouth open, and abdomen tensed, exhale forcibly as the arms uncross.
C Exhale all the air from the lungs, using a small cough to clear out the last residue. Note how the abdominal muscles are active.
ZEN EXHALATION
D Exhaling in zazen. The mouth is slightly open and the tongue is between the lips.
E Squeeze the lower abdomen as the body leans forward at the waist.
F Finishing position.
Karate
Exhalation Using Ibuki Breathing
• Hold abdominal muscles tight.
• Keep the lower abdomen tensed, with awareness of the muscles gripped tight.
• Open mouth wide, throat open and relaxed, windpipe free, tongue relaxed, held in lower palate.
• Squeeze from the hara, forcibly and audibly exhaling until lungs are completely emptied of air.
• Expel last trace of air with small cough.
Zen
Exhalation
• Let belly fall back in and breathe out slowly, at twice the count of the inhalation. This is the active phase of the breath in Zen. When exhalation is complete, feel a squeezing down in the hara.
In order to bring the breath down to the hara, we must first have good posture, which means the spine erect and long, and the abdominal area free. The diaphragm, a thick, membrane-like muscle that is stretched across the body, is pulled down when we inhale. If we are relaxed, when the diaphragm pulls down, the belly just naturally pushes outward. When we exhale, we are forcing the diaphragm upward, compressing the volume of the chest cavity like a piston and forcing air from our lungs. When we do this naturally, the belly falls in. Thus, when we watch our own breath, we see our belly moving in and out gently, like waves moving in and retreating from the seashore.
Basically, the chest should be relatively stationary when we breathe. Everything is directed to moving the breath down to the hara, or tanden. In karate, the tanden is the source of power. When an experienced karate-ka is going to break a brick or a stone (tameshiwari), you may see him reaching inside to clutch at his hara, or tanden, to see that it is firm and full of breath and spirit. This is where real power, mental and physical, comes from. This is one of the unique features of the martial arts as opposed to other physical systems of exercise.
Eugen Herrigel, the author of Zen and The Art of Archery, was a German professor who went to Japan to study Zen. He was told, “It is very difficult. If you want
