Karada-kitae

Body hardening in karate is to condition or temper the bodies natural armor, the muscular system. Targeting of more sensitive areas of the body is not wise and those areas are protected by other means like body movement (Tai sabaki [体捌き]). 

Tai sabaki (体捌き) is whole body movement, and/or repositioning.

In sanchin shime, one is lightly or moderately punched ONLY in those muscular areas to train the mind and body to be hit. Read my article on sanchin shime here: https://tinyurl.com/2p89yh7x 

There are a variety of methods to harden the body:

1. Weight training or hojo-undo;
2. Various makiwara;
3. Sanchin;
4. Sanchin shime;
5. Kumite that specifically targets those natural body armor areas;

Karada kitae has within its discipline various partner driven exercises to toughen hands, feet, thighs, stomach, pectoral areas, etc., so look there as well. Karada kitae is a group of exercises meant to condition the body.

Before I continue here are some articles on the subject I wrote a while back. When reading remember the caveat I presented at the start of today’s article.

Martial Body and Mind Conditioning

Karada de Oboeru

Chinkuchi or Kokoro to Karada Zan

Karada kitae exercises teach us about certain fundamental principles with emphasis on the physiokinetic ( such as structure, posture, alignment, etc.) along with natural body armor conditioning. 

Here is another article on karada kitae:

https://tinyurl.com/4xrmctbn 

As can be readily understood, karada kitae is an important part of karate for self-defense and in my dojo at least 25% of training involves hitting and getting hit - hard. If one starts this part of training at the proper time for each student the hits only target the appropriate areas of the body and hits can then be pretty hard. 

Karada kitae involves a more stationary positioning of partners but one the student achieves a hard body armor then movement is introduced in Kumite starting with extreme control and gradually increasing speeds as each student increases expertise finally reaching a very creative expertise while learning to move so more sensitive parts of the body, joints and ligaments and cartilage and eyes and fingers … , are protected by movements to avoid an adversary from reaching dangerous injurious targets of the body.

This is your intro into the art and practice of karada kitae!