Karate, Bodhidarma and Right Breathing

The Origin of Shaolin King Fu is attributed in part to the founder of Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism, the Indian Monk Bodhidharma, who spent nine years at a Shao Lin temple in the Songshan Mountains of China sometime around 520 AD. Martial arts existed in China long before then – there are references in the Spring and Autumn Annals, composed between 800–500 B.C., to “hard” and “soft” fighting techniques.  However, after nine years of meditation facing the wall of a cave located nearby, and concerned by the physical state of some of the monks, the Bodhidharma set forth a series of exercises to be practiced by monks to strengthen both mind and body, and introduced a set of physical exercises consisting of (in Japanese)  the Ekkinkyo and Senzuikyo.

The Ekkinkyo are a series of exercises and breathing techniques to enable one's body to withstand the long hours of meditation and other severe forms of training, while the Senzuikyo shows how monks should develop their mental and spiritual strength.  From these exercises an additional method, or kata, was developed known as the Shih Pa Lohan Shu (the "Eighteen Hands of the Lohan").

These breathing exercises came to be held in very high regard in Okinawa by many of the great karate masters, and have played a key role in the development of karate training. Morio Higaonna refers to them as “the most fundamental precepts of present day karate-do.”  Gichin Funakoshi, who initially popularized karate on mainland Japan in the 1920s, is quoted in his “Introduction to Karatedo" as saying: “By strengthening the body through the method described in the Ekkin sutra, one can acquire the prowess of the Deva kings. Polishing the mind through the Senzui sutra develops the strength of will to pursue the spiritual path.”

The power of correct breathing, and the importance of traditional techniques to develop it, cannot be underestimated in karate training.