Kiai (spirit yell)

[SamT]

Guys,

Your in your car and it goes into a skid.. do you yell as you try to correct? (ok, maybe you do as you are about to hit that 18 wheeler.)

When you pick up heavy furniture, do you yell as you lift? "Aaand, UUUP!" With a few grunts.

When you hammer a nail, do you yell? Hammering a nail vs a strike? One is all about precision and doesn't require much force, the other is about a powerful hit directed to a certain part of the body.

Yell as you chop wood? On a very hard swing, yes.

Yell as you life weights in the gym? Given the nature of it being a gradual progressive thing, I usually let out a grunt.

Ok, do you hear boxers yell when they fight? I don't watch much boxing, but I've heard lots of grunts and light yells.

Do Muay Thai fighters yell when the hit? Never watched Muay Thai sparring.

Did Chuck Norris and Joe Louis yell when they fought in tournaments? Before my time.

Ok, so you get the point, right? I've never yelled in a fight and while I'll yell to please the instructor, I don't put all that much stock in it.

Deaf

I think you're missing the purpose of a Kiai. We're taught to do it when moving into positions and on final strikes in parts of our forms (in Ki Cho Hyung Il Bu, for example, we kiai on our third strike when doing our three punches). I've unfortunately had to use TSD outside of the dojang, and a strong kiai does help add more force behind a strike.

Now if you'll let me ask you this,

When you're testing and you're required to break cement blocks, are you going to kiai? Or will you just let out a silent exhale?

 

[seasoned]

Breathe in while you punch, now breathe out, while you punch, now breathe out, with a Kiai. A Kiai is not something you should over use, but it is a known fact that breathing out, while exerting yourself will add power to your move, what ever that move is. I feel that it is the culmination, the finally, the ending. Not every technique is an ending technique, but add a Kiai and it ties together the mind, body and spirit. When I add a Kiai to a technique, all control is thrown to the winds, my technique, at that point in time, is going through and destroying anything in it path. If my body says it is so, and my mind says it is so and my spirit is in agreement, there is no room to fail. It may not be for everyone, but it is in the kata for a reason.

 

[Tez3]

I am going to skip reading all of the posts before I post this so I may be repeating what others have said.
Yes it is taught in some of the forms I teach and learned. Yes it has meaning and a place in forms and in actual sparring/fighting.
Now what I do not agree with is hearing the same sound with every yell. If the breathing is done correctly the sound will vary depending on where the strike is. It will also sound different if the yell is done as a defensive measure.
What I abhor is watching ISKA and seeing people scream for no other reason than to scream

What annoys me also are the people who actually shout the word 'kiai' out. They might as well shout 'SHOUT'!
I've seen many competitiors shout/scream when they've missed a strike but want the referees to believe they scored, it's pure gamesmanship.
Screaming should be discouraged by a severe thumping of the person guilty of it lol! Seriously though, it is literally a pain in the ears.

 

[SamT]

If the referee is judging by sound, then I think there's something wrong.

And giving someone something to yell at the beginning helps out, I see a lot of people develop their own as time goes by. Watching a black belt test with about 30 people, I hear about 32 or 33 different kihaps .

 

[dancingalone]

I gotta agree a lot with Deaf Smith, I never used or felt the need to use a Kiai when fighting. When I was younger and competed in points/sport tournaments then as said below, a good yell can get you a point regardless of whether you actually connected, or would have even connected. But aside as something as artificial as sport karate or as required in kata there is no significant real world application that I see.

Everyting of course has its time and place, when sparring with my sensei when I was still green, he would sometimes let out a kiai, not normally a high pitched wail or a shout/scream, but a more guttural noise, this put me off balance a bit as it indicated some heavy duty **** was about to come my way. To put off or distract an opponent can be good but not someting that will go far against someone seasoned.

In goju ryu we definitely kiai in most of the kata, on a power move or strike at the end of most sections.
But for fighting I was trained not to give away your breathing timing, to be able to read an oponents exalation/inhalation is a very effective tool and tells you just when it will be worst to strike their solar plexus.

Do you regard forceful expelling of air to be a kiai? It's one of the key components to understanding how to root properly in sanchin.

 

[redantstyle]

kiai stabilizes the center of the body. there is not much bone there, only the lumbar. the upper portion of the body rarely fails under stress. it's the lower back that gives out under pressure. kiai tightens alot of muscles in the middle to give a moment of 'artificial support'.

 

[seasoned]

Lift from the center, pull from the center, push from the center, breath from the center, think from the center, move from the center.

 

[Sylo]

This is something that bothers me about my school.

When I started (at this same school). I was taught the Kiai. It wasn't just something I did. I was taught why I was doing it, and how to do it properly.

Now adays, its just people yelling.

I've heard...

"I-ya!"
"Hi-ya!"
"Ai!"
and my personal favorite..

"Aye!"

all done at varying volumes ranging from extremely loud.. to almost a whisper. Usually their momentum doesn't change, as they were never taught WHY and HOW so its just "part of it" to them.

it also irks me to hear.. "Yes SIR!" instead of "Thank You sir" user in reply to another popular korean phrase used in TKD..

 

[bluekey88]

Funny enough, I found a great use for the kiai as a training tool.

here is my shameful story

I decided to ente rmself into a TKD competiton recently. I've been doing lots of extra sparring as part of my prep and training. generally, ZI think I do pretty gopod with my breathing...

However, the other week, one of my training partners pointed out that I had a "tell"...every time I went to throw a power kick, I'd hold my breath.

This is bad. Not only am I giving away my intentions to my opponenet, but I'm sapping my precious cardio (I simply don;t have much at 235 lbs).

So, what to do? competitoin a week away? I have no idea when this became a habit...shessh. Only one thing to do, i decided I'd kiai with every kick when I sparred.

End result, I did better cardio-wise in my fight...I was betrter able to control the pace of the fight as a result...bu I sounded like an idiot

Hopefully, I'll be able to back things up when I become more aware of my breathing when I spar.

Peace,
Erik

 

[Aiki Lee]

Guys,

Your in your car and it goes into a skid.. do you yell as you try to correct? (ok, maybe you do as you are about to hit that 18 wheeler.)

When you pick up heavy furniture, do you yell as you lift?

When you hammer a nail, do you yell?

Yell as you chop wood?

Yell as you life weights in the gym?

Ok, do you hear boxers yell when they fight?

Do Muay Thai fighters yell when the hit?

Did Chuck Norris and Joe Louis yell when they fought in tournaments?

Ok, so you get the point, right? I've never yelled in a fight and while I'll yell to please the instructor, I don't put all that much stock in it.

Deaf

1. car crash? Yes. But that doesn't have anything to do with fighting.

2. No, but you grunt when you lift heavy things. Look at power lifters they always grunt loudly.

3. No...but hammering a nail doesn't require the exertion of a lot of effort

4. If using an axe there is probably some grunting.

5. Weights, same as #2

6. Boxers wear mouth guards whihc prevents them from yelling.

7. If they aren't wearing mouthgaurds? Yes I have.

8. They are sport fighters, they wear mouthgaurds.

9. What point? You haven't made any point as far as I'm concerned. Plus just because you haven't kiaied doesn't mean kiai don't work. That would be like me saying kicking doesn't work because I've never kicked anone in a fight.

 

[Aiki Lee]

I am going to skip reading all of the posts before I post this so I may be repeating what others have said.
Yes it is taught in some of the forms I teach and learned. Yes it has meaning and a place in forms and in actual sparring/fighting.
Now what I do not agree with is hearing the same sound with every yell. If the breathing is done correctly the sound will vary depending on where the strike is. It will also sound different if the yell is done as a defensive measure.
What I abhor is watching ISKA and seeing people scream for no other reason than to scream

I agree.

 

[Sylo]

1. car crash? Yes. But that doesn't have anything to do with fighting.

2. No, but you grunt when you lift heavy things. Look at power lifters they always grunt loudly.

3. No...but hammering a nail doesn't require the exertion of a lot of effort

4. If using an axe there is probably some grunting.

5. Weights, same as #2

6. Boxers wear mouth guards whihc prevents them from yelling.

7. If they aren't wearing mouthgaurds? Yes I have.

8. They are sport fighters, they wear mouthgaurds.

9. What point? You haven't made any point as far as I'm concerned. Plus just because you haven't kiaied doesn't mean kiai don't work. That would be like me saying kicking doesn't work because I've never kicked anone in a fight.

I've never shot a gun either, but they seem to be pretty dang effective if used in combat.

 

[seasoned]

You are correct, that in fighting, you do not went to let your opponent detect your breathing. As far as a kiai goes, there will be no detection of your breath, because the nature of the kiai is to strike simultaneously with your kiai. The kata contain the heart of the art of GoJu, which is not for show. If you kiai in the kata then you kiai in a real fight. Sport karate has misused a lot, because of the tournament aspect, and kiai is an example, as shown by peoples understanding of it. :asian:

 

[chinto]

we are trained to kiai before .. just before the technique. this is because that is when you are going to get hit is when you punch or do some other technique.
Kiai is about tensioning as well as power..

 

[K-man]

My thoughts on the Kiai are as follows and all these ideas have been somewhere in the previous posts.
Firstly, it is a means to focus our energy, or Ki, as we strike.
The second reason is as important as the first. The Kiai forces us to expel air from our lungs. We all know that we should breathe out as we strike, (listen to the boxers during bag training), but not all instructors understand why. It can be shown that more power is generated when the lungs are almost empty than when we hold our breath.
Thirdly the shout can disorient our opponent, gaining us a valuable fraction of a second.
Now if you consider all these things you can see that the Kiai does not occur at the moment of impact but just before. Look at the result. We concentrate our energy, generate maximum power and disorient our opponent. All good.
As you can see, the 'Kiai' is an important part of Goju training.
Finally, I too find it mildly amusing to hear instructors shouting 'Kiai!', the word, instead of the spirit shout (whatever the sound).

As an aside. Years ago, in our tournaments, the referree would not award a point unless the strike or kick was delivered with kiai. :asian: