Translates as: FOCUS
Kime is a long venerated Karate term as well as practice... it is the essence of Karate for most.
It translates from the longer word of Kimeru meaning to decide, fix or set... in short, focused intent or energy.
As a Martial Artist, you focus on exacting actions, stances, postures, transitions and even weapon conditioning. You use a Makiwara (The makiwara is a training devise used by karate practitioners to practice strikes in much the same way as a boxer uses a heavy bag. The makiwara develops one's striking ability by letting them experience resistance to punches, kicks and other strikes. A poor punch will bounce off the makiwara if the body is not in a position to support the energy generated by the strike. It also develops targeting, and focus, which is the ability to penetrate the target (i.e., opponent) to varying degrees of force.) as a means to focus your power as it conditions or forms a stronger weapon. And as many Karateka insist that consistently training on a Makiwara to create new neural pathways in the brain to create greater speed, accuracy and focus (KIME)... you must have a specified target to focus on.
But Where
Most Karateka train the central philosophy and attribute, of KIME, they ignore the most fundamental aspect, that being what to focus toward on the opponent. Instead they focus or fixate on themselves rather than the weaker anatomical targets on an opponent. As example they choose larger areas such as head or body, but this is random striking and has no real FOCUS or KIME.
The study and practice of Kyusho is your answer to this discrepancy and will give you and all Karateka a more developed and advanced Focus or KIME, something we all strive for. As another example, most Karateka work the Makiwara, but loose it's lessons in our basics, Kata and even Kumite. We can correct this with Kyusho by getting more focused on specific tools, targets and trajectories in our one steps drills, Kumite, Kata and Tegumi. By integrating the Kyusho (Vital Targets) as well as the correct trajectory of attack, our KIME will be increased exponentially.
Going back to the Makiwara practice, we see it also increases the worth of your forged tools, as we focus on our knuckles, toes and elbowsIt is these calloused knuckles or other tools, that fit into the smaller more focused targets and at the correct trajectories (using Kata as our mapping and deployment guide). The decision we must make to bring our Karate to greater heights as well as return to it's original intent, is to decide to fix our targeting, tools and application of force into greater detail like Kyusho Targets. It will not only increase your KIME to greater heights, but also your effect, efficiency and evolution in your chosen Art or Style.
Kyusho is what KIME is all about.
#Kyusho -ep
