Foundattions of karate techniques

Foundations of karate technique
We discuss pre requirements to karate technique, conditions that have to be understood and digested before we can talk about speed, snap, and kime.

Intention
Condense ki energy to body center (using breath and intention), body center is intention center, intention from center to opponent's center. Intention, imagination first, than breath, than spinal muscles, and in ripple effect energy, force increases to extremities and technique.

Posture
best body alignment from where body movement can be initiated quickest, smoothest and with least effort. The postural direction have important influence on our mental and emotional state.

Using ground reaction, stance
We cannot increase energy and change the center of mass without external force, all karate technique is initiated from external force, indirectly.Stance in karate is for the purpose of maximizing ground reaction forces to initiate a technique, quickest, without back motion.
Also, the purpose of stance is to provide strongest base to deliver force fully to the target at impact (kime).

Zui Ban, accompanying movement, action from body center
When the body center, about 3 fingers under the belly button toward the spine, at the sacrum, moves to certain direction, all parts of the body tend to cooperate to same direction.
Therefore, our intention center and action center is at the Tan Den.


Breath control technique
Breathing from floor to initiate the technique from ground reaction, and to activate the muscles as chain reaction from the feet up. We use "reverse" exhale to produce force from outside inward, such as pulling, sweeping technique. The breath controls muscles contraction/expansion, and the type of contraction we want at kime.

Sequence, timing within technique
To accumulate maximum energy, each body segment increases energy fully and than next segment starts. Simply we say, body action first than technique starts naturally.
Or, we say, in hand techniques: stomach to elbow to contact area, in foot techniques: stomach to knee to contact area.

Joint as action center
Energy transfer from one body segment to another at the joint, the more stable the joint is, the more transfer of energy. For example, if the knee is wobbly during hips rotation, ground reaction energy will dissipate.