Principle 15: Breath Control

Principle 14: Complete Motion

Many people who practice Karate are very concerned with how to breathe properly. The most basic advice usually says that one should breathe in on a block and out on a punch or kick. A single exhalation should be used for two techniques performed together in succession. During a continuous stream of strikes and kicks, the performer should inhale during pauses and exhale during the techniques. There is yet another level to this breathing that I believe many subscribe to, and that is inhaling quickly and then exhaling strongly during the motion of a particular kind of technique, and ascribing to each technique in a kata its own particular breathing pattern. Thus, such a Karate expert will always try to memorize the breathing pattern just as he memorizes the rest of the kata – as if the proper pattern to use for breathing were a kata all by itself. However, eventually I began to come to believe that my breathing does not need to be linked to performance of techniques. Exhaling or inhaling on a block or punch is not really necessary for performance of an excellent kata nor for surviving a fight. Does it help the power of a technique? I have never seen it demonstrated with concrete proof that it does. I grant that weightlifters grunt when they lift a large amount of weight, and they are coached to exhale, but a punch is not a weightlifting exercise. Thus, I eventually tried performing my kata while humming a song to myself and therefore decoupled my breathing pattern from the movements of the kata. The result was that I found my movements to become much more natural, fluid, and relaxed, and on top of that, I was far less exhausted at the end of the kata.

I recommend to all to experiment with decoupling the breath from their kata. There is plenty of training in linking them together, but very little or no training in unlinking them so that breathing is natural and relaxed, and thus the body is relaxed during motion. Try this for your self and see if you like the effects.

Principle 15: Breath Control

Another breathing habit that I am not necessarily married to is the concept of making noisy breaths. Some Karate styles, particularly those with influence from Goju-Ryu, emphasize breathing noisily while contracting the diaphragm so the body feels as though it is being tensed more strongly. Instead of doing this kind of thing, I think it is more important to train to breath relaxed and yet silently. If breathing is silent and difficult to see, an opponent cannot observe the motions of the body as you breathe and then take advantage of the timing of your breath and hit you at a moment when it would be difficult to react. Breathing silently and invisibly would be quite a skill to develop. No matter the breathing pattern used, Karate experts all agree that during a kata or a fight, no one wants to be thinking about their breathing. Instead, they need their conscious mind clear to think about other concerns while the subconscious mind breaths in whatever pattern or lack thereof that the expert prefers. Automate breathing to achieve more success and effectiveness in kata performance.