The Mind/Body Gestalt
BY ‘MIND/BODY GESTALT’ we mean the idea that mind and body considered together form
a whole that is different from either mind or body considered as separate entities. By way ofsetting the scene for this article, we shall mention two related distinctions that have
implications for the martial artist. The first is a commonplace of martial arts writing; thesecond exercises a pervasive influence on the ways in which we perceive ourselves and thenature of our actions.
1. The distinction between “hard” or “external” and “soft” or “internal” martial arts. Thisdistinction (by no means uncontroversial even among those who accept it) makes its
appearance in Chinese sources in the seventeenth century.1 It is most usually associatedwith the Chinese scholar and martial artist Sun Lutang (1860–1933), founder of the eclectic
Sun method of taijiquan.2 The internal arts, called neijia in Chinese, are said to rely centrally
on the mind to co-ordinate the body, and to make use of chi/ki as distinct from physical or“external” strength. These arts include taijiquan, xingyiquan and baguazhang and, among
the Japanese arts, aikido. The external arts (waijia in Chinese) such as Shaolin quan are held
to be such that mind and internal energy are secondary to physical or external force.
According to this classification, karate is an external art.
2. The distinction between mind and body. “Mind/body dualism” – the idea that mind andbody are ontologically separate entities – has been a talking-point of western philosophy
since the seventeenth century,3 but the philosophical doctrine only expresses acharacteristic that all human beings seem to have: the tendency to think of themselves as (inGilbert Ryle’s phrase) “ghosts in the machine”4 – as minds that live inside bodies and, so to
speak, operate the mechanism. Perhaps this is a tendency associated with the quasireligious idea of a “soul.” My self has two components, body and soul, and my body is not
the “real” me. The mind/body distinction is associated also with the persistent idea thatmental activity is somehow superior to physical. Sometimes, indeed, we think of mind andbody as being opposed to one another: of mind as something that has to overcome bodily
impulses, or that can be overcome by them.
We shall not dwell on the philosophical niceties of mind/body dualism, nor shall we
disccuss the contentious idea of chi/ki. We shall suggest only that the distinctions between
internal and external arts and between mind and body are of doubtful validity. It is muchbetter not to think in terms of “hard” and “soft” martial arts with methodologies
fundamentally different from one another. It is better also not to conceive of mind as
occupying a sort of compartment of its own, or of the mental and physical “realms” asbeing different modes of experience.
Something of what we mean by all this is conveyed in the familiar diagram called taijitu:
1

2

3
4

M. Shahar, “Ming-Period Evidence of Shaolin Martial Practice,”.Har- vard Journal of Asiatic Studies(Harvard-Yenching Institute) 61 (2) December 2001: pp. 359–413.
See Classical Taijiquan (ed. and trans. Joseph Crandall) vol. 1: Taijiquan Xue (A Study of Taiji Boxing) by Sun
Lutang (Smiling Tiger Martial Arts, 2000).
Largely thanks to the work of the French philosopher and math-ematician René Descartes (1596–1650).
See Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (1949; new edn, University of Chicago Press, 2002).

This diagram is also known as the yin/yang symbol. Putting it at its simplest, the taijitu
expresses the proposition that reality consists not of categorially distinct opposites, but of
the interdependence of opposites. You cannot have dark without light, high without low,male without female, front without back, soft without hard – and so on and so forth.
Opposites – black and white, “yin” and “yang” – have an inseparable relation to each other,and each contains some part of the other. This concept has a number of recondite meanings
in Daoist cosmology and metaphysics, but these are matters into which we need notdigress. We shall use the idea of the inseparability of opposites only to illustrate two points
that are central to our discussion.
1. It is a fallacy to suppose that mind and body are distinct and that the mind drives orcontrols the body as if the body were a horse and the mind a rider. Because the body is not
an automaton, its operation depends upon the direction of mind; because mind has nomaterial form, it depends upon a properly functioning body to act in the world according
to its purposes. But this is a relationship of interdependence. The workings of mind are notdistinct from the actions of body; mind and body are the completion of each other. This istrue in general, and it is true of karate specifically. Effective karate requires that themind/body nexus be completely integrated and seamless. Mind and body must flow into
one another in an uninterrupted swirl, like cream and coffee in the same cup. If even asecond’s hesitation or reflection is necessary as a preliminary to action then what you haveis fatal hesitation. No martial art is simply a matter of mind or body: all arts require thedynamic interplay of each with the other.
2. Prescinding entirely from the question of chi/ki, there is no such thing as a martial art
that is hard but not soft, internal but not external. In functional terms, and regardless ofappearances, all arts are both. Receiving and deflecting and evading an attack requires
suppleness or softness – yin or ju (柔). Striking and kicking requires hardness and“external” force: yang or go (剛). The vital thing is to know how and when to call uponeach and how to use each. Hard and soft must flow into each another like the black andwhite of the taijitu. This truism is reflected in the name coined by Miyagi Chojun Osensei:
Goju Ryu – “Hard/Soft School.”5
We shall try in this article to bring out some of the practical implications of thesepreliminaries.

Fear and Relaxation
Animals, including human animals, exhibit one of three reactions when threatened or
alarmed: flight, fight or freeze. It is with the last of these that we are concerned.
The tendency to freeze or tense when frightened is the “rabbit in the headlights”
phenomenon. On the basis of common human experience we speak of someone being
5

Miyagi Osensei derived this name from a passage in the ancient martial arts text called Bubishi; see Patrick
McCarthy (ed. and trans.), Bubishi: The Classic Manual of Combat (Charles E. Tuttle, 2008).

“paralysed with fear” or “frozen with terror.” But you cannot defend yourself if you arefrozen with terror; you cannot deflect, absorb or evade an attack if you cannot move. You
cannot even run away. Nor is it enough to be able to overcome an initial “freeze” response
and move from it into a condition of softness or relaxation – because moving from a state of
tension to a state of relaxation takes time, and time is something that you cannot afford towaste. The martial artist must learn to exist in a state of relaxation that is constant or
normal: not a state in which the “freeze” reaction can be quickly overcome, but one inwhich it does not occur at all. He must develop relaxation as a permanent condition ofexistence that does not desert him at moments of stress. This is very difficult to do, because
it requires us to override something that seems instinctive. Why an instinct that has suchnegative survival value should have persisted is something of a mystery.
But consider the “freeze” reaction in terms of the kind of symbolism provided by thetaijitu. Is the paralysis of fear a mental phenomenon or a physical one? Does the bodyfreeze because the mind is in a state of panic, or is the mind in a state of panic because thebody is frozen? Anyone who thinks about it will, we suggest, soon realise that these are thewrong questions to be asking. The “freeze” reaction cannot be analysed in terms of amind/body dichotomy, because mind and body do not operate separately in the ways thatsuch a dichotomy presupposes.
It is important not to be misled by some of the connotations of the word “relaxation”:
connotations of inattention, inertia, sleepiness, sluggishness. What we mean by it is a stateof confident poise or alertness such that one can react instantly to any situation without“freezing,” letting softness and hardness – “ju” and “go,” defence and attack – flow into
one another without thought or pause. A familiar illustration of this interplay of soft andhard is the pine tree in the wind. The pine tree is strong, but it is also supple. When thewind blows it accommodates itself to the force of the wind instantaneously, without
thought or deliberation. It is precisely through doing this that it becomes strong – able toreceive the wind without damage to itself.
Clearly, however, developing this condition of relaxed versatility is not a matter oftraining the mind; nor is it a matter of training the body; nor is it even a matter of training
both – because, strictly speaking, there is no “both”: there is no duality. It is a matter oftraining what we can call the mind/body gestalt. To do this effectively is to achieve what is
usually called mushin (無心): a state of being such that the mind/body gestalt reacts
without so much as a second’s hesitation to whatever situation confronts it – hard or soft,
attacking or yielding, resisting or giving way, as the flow of circumstance requires.
In the following pages we shall recommend some exercises and methods that have beenfound valuable in cultivating the kind of mind/body integration that we have described.

Meditation
There are two main school or sects of Zen meditation in Japan: Soto (曹洞) and Rinzai(臨済). The differences between them are mostly methodological, but this is not somethingthat we need spend time on. What the two schools have in common is the practice of
meditation as a way of developing awareness of the true nature of the self: of themind/body gestalt and its place in the world. In meditation, body and mind are no longer
separate: they come together as one reality.
In Japan, seated meditation or zazen (座禅) is usually practised in the posture called
seiza (正座). This involves sitting on the floor in the way illustrated below, with the backstraight but not tense and the shoulders relaxed. You can sit on your heels, or you may findit more comfortable to sit on a small plump cushion of the kind called zafu (坐蒲) inJapanese. The hands are folded in the lap, usually with the fingers of the left hand restingon those of the right6 and the tips of the thumbs touching. The eyes are kept open
(otherwise you may fall asleep!) and should look at the ground about two or three feet infront of you. Breathe slowly and deeply, in through your nose and out through yourmouth.

Zazen
Because Japanese people sit in seiza from an early age, they do not find it uncomfortable,
but westerners – especially older people – may find it hard to get used to. Remember that
meditation is not supposed to be an ordeal or a pain-resisting exercise. If you cannot get
used to seiza – if your legs always go numb or your knees hurt – you can sit on the floor
or a cushion in a simple legs-crossed position, or you can meditate sitting on a chair (nottoo comfortable a chair, though, because, again, you may find yourself falling asleep).
Another common posture for seated meditation is the lotus seat, as illustrated below; but if

The lotus seat6

Left-handed people find it more natural to rest the fingers of the right hand on those of the left. It really
does not matter.

you find seiza too hard on the knees you will probably find the lotus seat impossible. If you
can sit comfortably in seiza or the lotus seat, well and good, but there is no need to fret about
it. It is not a good idea to sit in any fixed position for very long periods even if you experienceno great discomfort. Prolonged immobility combined with dehydration can have serious
consequences, such as deep-vein thromboses. Sensible meditation does not put the normally
healthy person at serious risk of such things, but it is as well to mention them. The method ofwalking meditation called kinhin (経行) is also valuable. It involves nothing more
complicated than walking around the dojo (or wherever you happen to be meditating),
taking each step slowly and deliberately while maintaining the same state of tranquillity anddetachment as you have in seated meditation. The Chinese zhan zhuang exercise is thesimplest alternative of all. Just stand in heiko dachi (平行立) with your hands hanging loosely
by your sides and breathe deeply, feeling your body relaxing and sinking with each outbreath.
The purpose of meditation is to withdraw the self from engagement with distracting
things and to integrate body and mind into a calm and relaxed unity. (Consciously anddeliberately relaxing your shoulders will almost certainly show you that you are more tensethan you thought you were.)7 However exotic and unfamiliar it may seem at first,
meditation is a completely straightforward practice. Contrary to what is sometimes
thought, it is not necessary to meditate “on” anything. Advice often given to the beginner isthat you should not think about anything; but this, of course, is hopeless: you will
immediately start thinking about not thinking about anything. More helpful advice is: letthoughts arise and pass away naturally, like bubbles rising up though lemonade. Do notworry about the fact that they are arising or try to suppress them. Be aware of them, but takeno interest in them: do not attach yourself to them. If at first you find it difficult not to be
distracted by passing thoughts, focus your attention on something specific but neutral: thesensation of breath passing in through your nostrils and out through your mouth, or therising and falling of your chest as you breathe.
Meditation is not something that comes easily to people accustomed to living in a busy
world; some people even feel guilty or self-indulgent about taking time to do it. Nor, as withso many things, is it possible to give hard and fast directions, because within certain
parameters everyone will develop his or her own way of meditating. Just as there is no needto look for hidden difficulties, so too there is no need to look for rules and regulations. The
outcome is the important thing, not the process. The more you do it, the easier you will find it
to enter a meditative state, and the more completely will the calm mind/body condition thatyou discover enter into all aspects of your life. Try to set aside fifteen minutes each day for
meditation. Separate yourself from all extraneous concerns, and enjoy the stillness of beingalone with yourself.

Trust Exercises
Because tension is so frequent a concomitant of stress, exercises that enable you to stayrelaxed in a stressful situation are especially beneficial. The various “pushing hands”
exercises common in Chinese and Japanese martial arts are a good examples of this,7

Unconsciously tensing the neck and shoulders is one of the most typical signs of stress, and a primarycause of tension headaches. You can easily test this for yourself. Pause at some point during the day andsee if your shoulders are “up.” If they are, relax them as comp-letely as you can and take a few calming
breaths. Then try the same thing again in an hour. In all probability your shoulders will have come “up”
again without your realising it. This seems to be especially true of people who work at desks.

especially when practised with speed and vigour. If you do not remain relaxed, you simply
cannot do the exercise; but, at the same time, you know that you are pushing hands withsomeone who is trying to unbalance you or to take some other kind of tactical advantage.
Also, you can add degrees of stress by means other than increasing speed and vigour. Try
staring into one another’s eyes as you push hands: excessive eye contact is disturbing at thebest of times; or try pushing hands blindfolded or with your eyes closed.
Here are three simple “trust” exercises that will enable you to explore for yourself therelation between stress, tension and relaxation. The idea in each case is not primarily thatyou should trust your partner but that you should learn to trust yourself to “let go”: tooverride fear under conditions of stress.
1. Partner A stands in front of Partner B and topples rigidly over backwards like a tree,
making no effort to save himself – and implicitly trusting Partner B not to let him fall.
2. Partner A lies on his back, with Partner B kneeling behind him and holding his head in
his cupped hands. For Partner A, the object of the exercise is to relax his whole body,
including his neck, making no muscular effort to support his head. He knows that if
Partner B lets go of his head it will bang on the ground – but he must still remain perfectly
relaxed, trusting Partner B not to let this happen. (We have, incidentally, seen people fallasleep during this exercise. If you can do that, you have certainly mastered the art ofrelaxation.)

Partner A stands in front of Partner B ...

... and topples over backwards, trusting
Partner B to catch him

2. Partner A lies on his back, with Partner B kneeling behind
him and holding his head in his hands. Partner A must
relax completely, trusting Partner B not to let
his head bang on the ground
3. Partner B leads Partner A around the dojo while Partner A keeps his eyes closed or –better still – wears a thick blindfold. Partner A’s task is to remain completely relaxed,
entirely trusting Partner B not to let him bump into anything.
The advantage of these exercises is that they create perceptible levels of stress with nopossibility of real catastrophe. You will probably find the self-relinquishment that theyrequire difficult at first, especially if you practise them with someone whom you do notknow well; but overcoming the difficulty is the whole point. Trust exercises will make you
acquainted with your worst enemy. No doubt the reader will be able to devise other waysof creating stress and learning to cope with it. Kata practice blindfolded or in the dark is an
example of something that can be done along the same lines.

Relaxation and the Control of Space
Everyone is familiar with the idea of personal space; everyone has his own private bubble:
the area around him, defined by an invisible boundary, within which he feels safe andcomfortable. The boundary is not a rigid one. Different people have different conceptions
about how far their personal space extends, and these conceptions naturally vary according
to (for example) whether they are with friends or strangers. There are also culturaldifferences that can lead to awkwardness: people from some cultures seem to need a smalleror larger private bubble than others do. But a bubble of some kind seems to be a universal
psychological need. No one likes to have his or her personal space entered by a stranger oragainst his will. Even in circumstances that are not particularly threatening it feels
uncomfortable – anyone who has ever stood in a crowded lift or on a packed undergroundtrain will know this. In less benign circumstances – confronted by an aggressive or angry or
violent individual – it is a good deal more than uncomfortable, and a typical feature of

aggressive behaviour is that an aggressor will try to intimidate you by invading yourpersonal space. Considered under this aspect, an assault is nothing more than a violent entry
into your private bubble; self-defence is the gesture that you make to reclaim it.
Clearly, the management of personal space is integral to both psychological wellbeing
and personal safety. Equally clearly, maintaining or reclaiming it as an aspect of selfdefence requires that we be able to control distances by moving with decision, speed andfluency under conditions that are urgent and frightening. But, as we have seen, one of thecharacteristic untrained reactions to fear is to freeze. It is essential, therefore, to learn not
only how to relax under stress, but also how to relax and move under stress.
Once again, pushing hands exercises in their more advanced and dynamic aspects are agood way of training the mind/body gestalt to react to stress or threat with fluid and nominded movement. The following suggestions will also be found useful. As in the previous
section, this is not a complete list; you should feel free to devise methods of your own.
1. This exercise (and variants of it) was developed by Harada Mitsusuke Sensei of Karatedo Shotokai and regarded by him as having great value as a method of teaching effective
distance control. In its simplest form, two people stand facing each other with their arms
outstretched in front of them, just touching one another’s fingertips. This is an absolutely
safe personal space (though larger than most people require) because, at this distance,neither partner can reach the other, even with a kick.

This is an absolutely safe personal space because, at this distance,neither partner can reach the other, even with a kick
The object of the exercise is for each partner to defend his personal space against theother’s increasingly resolute attempts to enter it. The partners move across the floor, one
walking backwards and the other forwards. When they reach the wall, they change
direction and come back the other way, maintaining contact with their fingertips at all
times. For each partner, the objective is (a) to get close enough to the other to touch his
body and (b) to prevent the other from doing the same thing to him. Each partner must try
to keep the other at a distance neither greater nor smaller than the length of theiroutstretched arms.

Moving backwards and forwards, each partner must try to keep
the other at a distance neither greater nor smaller than thelength of their outstretched arms
This exercise should be done slowly and uncompetitively at first, but with increasing speed
and determination and with sudden and unexpected changes of direction as the participants
try to take one another by surprise. At its most advanced it is done at a brisk run. As withpushing hands, you cannot do this exercise unless you are relaxed and can move readily, but
speed and the determination of your partner to enter your bubble will put you under adegree of stress that you will have to overcome. As with the “trust” exercises, there isstress, but no harm will be done if it goes wrong.
This exercise can, of course, be done out of doors if your dojo is not big enough. You
should be careful about practising it at speed in bare feet on a wooden floor. The sudden
and rapid changes of direction that it requires will generate a lot of friction, and you willdevelop painful blisters if you are not careful.
2. This exercise can be regarded as a preliminary to the practice of tai sabaki (体捌き) or‘body-shifting.’ One partner attacks the other; the other’s role is to evade the attack simply bystepping away from it or around it.

White Gi is about to attack Black Gi; Black Gi’s role ...

... is to evade the attack simply by stepping away from it or around it
The point here is to train not self-defence as such, but calm and relaxed immediacy of
movement under stress. The partner receiving the attack makes no block or counter-attack.
His only objective is to move out of danger. The above illustrations show the exercise at
beginner’s level. The amount of stress, and hence the degree of calmness and relaxation
required, can be heightened by reducing the distance and increasing the speed, power andunpredictability of the attacks. Eventually the exercise can become a kind of fast andfurious chasing game. An important part of it is to make the evasive movements as small as
possible: to let every miss be a narrow one. As we have said before, evasion is not flight,
but tactical retreat, and it is vital to develop the confidence to work at close ranges.
The exercises so far described are meant to develop the mind/ body gestalt in relation towhat one might call the “ju” side of Goju, or the black or “yin” aspect of the taijitu: softness,fluency of movement and evasion. It is time now to look at the “go” or “yang” side.

Disinhibition and Reaction
There is an enormous difference between striking and kicking in the dojo and striking andkicking in earnest. The latter is far harder to do than many sincere and dedicated karateka
realise; certainly it is harder to do than “sport” karateka realise. We have said something
about the disabling effect of fear. We come now to something that, for many people, ismuch more pervasive and harder to deal with – partly because the problem that itpresents is one of which they are often unaware.
All ordinary adults – that is, sane people who are not violent criminals – have passed moreor less successfully through complex processes of upbringing and socialisation. We havebeen taught to conform, at any rate for most of the time, to the norms that others around us
acknowledge. We have been taught to suppress, if not always to rise above, our worst selves.
On the whole, we behave according to the values of our culture not only because we fear theconsequences of not doing so, but because we have had instilled in us a sense of right andwrong. Most people carry around with them a well developed set of inhibitions or taboos. In
the civilised world it is wrong to hurt people, wrong to grab for oneself, wrong to be brutallyselfish, right to consider others and defer to them – and so forth. Perhaps these principles are
sometimes more honoured in the breach than in the observance, but in the main they are
principles to which ordinary people in ordinary circumstances subscribe.

But consider the implications of this in extreme or extraordinary circumstances: in theevent of a violent attack on your person or on a loved one. Over and above the freeze
reaction that we have considered, another obstacle now presents itself: the learnt behaviourof the socialised human being. It is against all your training to let yourself go: to explodeinto violence, to fight, to hurt or injure someone – to revert to the behaviour of the savage.
Indeed, do we not normally have a clear mental picture of the sort of person that the
karateka should be – gentle, controlled, forbearing, peaceable? Here, then, the mind/bodygestalt is presented with a dilemma – and another possibility of fatal indecision. If you sit athome and consider the abstract possibility of an attack, or if you rehearse violent scenariosin the dojo, you may think that you do not suffer from such inhibitions. Possibly you areright. But experience suggests that most people are a good deal more inhibited than they
think they are. We have often seen students who, asked to give a “kiai” yell – to screamwith all their heart and all their might – find themselves unable to do it. They are unable to
do it because they can’t “let themselves go” – which is only another way of saying that they
can’t override the training in self-restraint that the ordinary civilised human being has
undergone. Also, the sort of play-fighting that one sees in the dojo does nothing to dispel
the inhibitions that we are talking about. You know that no one is going to hurt you, andthat you are not going to hurt anyone. It isn’t real.
Choosing not to defend yourself, on the Socratic principle that it is better to suffer evil
than do it, is a moral choice that it is open to anyone to make: provided that it is a choicerather than a case of pusillanimous dithering. By all means turn the other cheek if that iswhat seems right to you. But if you do choose to defend yourself:
1. You must act instantaneously. The smallest hesitation, whether it arises from fear or
scruples or a combination of both, will almost certainly mean your downfall.
2. You must act with total commitment. Half-hearted self-defence is no defence at all. It is,indeed, worse than no defence at all, because responses that lack conviction will only
increase the attacker’s level of arousal and make the situation worse.
What it boils down to, in the context of this section, is this: that you must find ways not
only of overcoming the “freeze” reaction to fear, but also of temporarily switching off theinhibitions that are characteristic of decent human beings. Notice the word “temporarily.”No one is suggesting that you should revert to savagery. Self-defence can and should beseen as a regrettable necessity in an extreme and abnormal predicament. Whatever isnecessary to secure your safety can and should be done without anger or hatred.
Nonetheless, if you are going to do it at all, the mind/body gestalt must be able to react
instantly and reflexively to whatever situation has arisen. You may find this a good deal
harder to do than you think you will. Here are some suggestions.
1. Quite apart from its unnerving effect on an attacker, few things are as disinhibiting as a
totally committed and unselfconscious “kiai” (気合). There is no point in emitting the kindof half-hearted and reticent yelp that one so often hears at “prescribed” points in a kata. It isvital to overcome the quasi-instinct to hold back. When you strike the makiwara or the bag,forget yourself – let yourself go. Scream with all the spirit and conviction that you have;yell as if you were trying to burst the dojo walls. Sasaki Sensei of Hida-shiki Kyouken-jutsu
is said to be able to make temple bells ring with the force of his kiai. Imagine yourself doing
that. Of course you will feel uncomfortable at first. Overcoming the “wrong” feeling that
accompanies letting yourself go – switching off the inhibition – is precisely the point.

2. In the same way, when you train on the makiwara or bag, train as if everything you love
depended on it. Routine or merely dutiful training – training as a wearisome chore – isuseless. Train as if each blow and each kick were the last act of your life. Every time you hit
the makiwara or the bag, do so with the intention of breaking it or splitting it. The wholemind/body gestalt must be single-pointedly committed to the strike at the instant you makeit. Each one should be a tremendous instant of explosive self-forgetfulness, like a sneeze or
an orgasm. Let every strike be made with your whole being, with no part of you standing
apart as a spectator. Strike without thought or emotion, with nothing attached to yourstrike – no past, no future, no result, no fear of failure: just the eternal moment.
In this connection note that it is important to avoid rhythm in your makiwara training. A
session of thump-thump-thump, with the blows coming like the ticking of a clock, will
detract from the force and intentionality of each strike. Let each be new, unique and selfcontained, not just one of a series.
3. When using the makiwara, have someone give you a random and unpredictable signal tostrike (“now!” or a click of the fingers or something of the kind). When you strike, aim to
reduce the time between the sound of the signal and the sound of the strike to its smallest
possible minimum. The two sounds can never be completely simultaneous, but try to get as
close to simultaneity as is humanly possible. Apart from anything else, this exercise willtrain you in the art of delivering short-range “untelegraphed” strikes, because the further astrike has to travel between inception and destination the greater the time-lag between thetwo sounds will be. Make sure, however, that reducing the distance does not reduce thepower of your strikes. Cultivate what Chinese artists call “fajin”: a sudden explosion ofcompletely uninhibited force.
Neither karate not any other art is purely external, nor should the body be thought of as amechanism that the mind leads or drives. Mind and body must be merged into one indivisible
and spontaneous whole. There must be no space between thought and act: no mind – mushin.
To the extent that mind and body are not integrated, there will be deliberation, hesitation,
tension, indecision, and these things will hold you back and drain the effectiveness awayfrom your karate. This unselfconscious and utter concentration of the self on the immediate
present is hard to describe and even harder to achieve; this is why Zen teachers so often
speak of a moment of satori (悟り ) – realisation: a flash of sudden awareness that is nonverbal , inexpressible and intuitive. Train until you find it.