I have watched a lot of MMA and MA tournaments. One thing I notice that is different is that MMA fighters don’t seem to yell out when they strike. Many of the Kendo, TKD, etc practitioners do, but I hardly hear a peep in MMA.
Why is this?
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December 16th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Some do, I have heard a few but the only one I remember
is Carlos Newton ans some African - American fighter. But there are
fighters who let out a Kiai at the start of the fight. It is pretty rare in
MMA though.
December 16th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Technically so do boxers…have you ever listened closely to the pros when they fight. They exhale when throwing power punches…the kiya is not exclusive to us martial artists.
My boxing coach was really big on using the same philosophy of the kiya and he was not even into martial arts…but that was way back in the day when I was a teen.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
There are a couple of elements going into the kiai:
1. Psychological warfare - as it turns out, yelling at your opponent really DOES (potentially) freak them out. Lots of cultures do it, for this exact reason. In a fight, it potentially can disrupt your opponent’s rhythm for a second or so; enough to slip a shot through their defense.
2. Psyching yourself up - again, a yell really does help to focus the mind and get the adrenaline pumping.
3. Working the center (gut) muscles - a quick, sharp exhale helps to clench the gut muscles; when timed correctly with a punch, it can help add power.
4. Hardening up the gut - so if your punch doesn’t land and you get caught with a counterstrike to the stomach, your gut will be hardened already and it won’t hurt as much.
5. Breathing - by performing a quick, sharp exhale, you can also train yourself to inhale right afterwords. This is important in sport-fighting, as it’s often as much about endurance as it is skill or strength.
With boxing (and athletes that have been trained by boxers), the breathing and gut-clenching reasons are used a lot. The psychological aspects really aren’t used, mainly because there are other ways to psych yourself up, and because it’s fairly easy for a trained, confident, skilled opponent to ignore the kiai. Thus, they don’t bother with the yelling part, and focus more on the breathing part.
The specific technique is a quick, sharp bite-down on the mouthpiece, along with a quick “huh!” or “tss!”, like they’re doing a sit up. So while it’s not about focusing your chi or anything like that, at the end of the day it’s a very similar technique.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:18 am
Kiai is an elaberation of regular body function of the grunt your exert your self
December 17th, 2008 at 8:35 am
the kiai is a traditional martial arts technique……mma is fighting (well the closest thing we have to it now in sport).