Kihap, or “Kiai” in Japanese, is often translated as “yell” or “shout”. In practical application, this isn’t wrong; when teaching beginners or children, instructors often say “yell like this” and demonstrate what a kihap sounds like. Sometimes, but not always, students would often kihap much like their instructor as they know no other way to kihap. Many students are often too shy to kihap, and without encouragement their kihap will never develop and be pitiful. People may say, “What’s the point? It’s not going to help in self defense or make me stronger or faster.”, but they would be wrong! Here are a few benefits on why you should work on your kihap.
Kihaps Make You Stronger
What does this mean? No, performing kihaps will not increase your muscle mass, sadly. However, when you kihap, your body undergoes a physiological change that hardens and strengthens when it takes action. In a study done by the University of Nebraska, it was shown that tennis players who grunted had increased ball velocity when they struck vs. those who didn’t (Callison). Similar studies showed that yelling and/or shouting increases the power output of their activities. When you or your student encounter troubles when trying to break a board, it is usually due to a poor kihap.
Kihaps Improve Your Breathing
When done properly, a kihap will expel all the air from the lungs, forcing the practitioner to inhale immediately. This allows fresh air to fill the lungs and to allow us to utilize the full capacity. When we only take shallow breaths, we become ineffecient with our oxygen intake and we can tire more easily. In the same University of Nebraska study, it was shown that kihaps showed that the increased power was achieved without an increase in oxygen levels, which meant that players were becoming more efficient in their activity as they kihaped.
Kihaps Can Provide Critical Time To Defend Yourself
When it comes to self defense, success or failure can come down to fractions of a second. A would-be assailant can attack via intimidation or surprise, and usually will wait until they have a perceived advantage over their victim. There is a critical time period when you become aware of the assault and be able to respond, and a kihap is a tool that can be deployed relatively quickly. Per a study from the University of Hawaii, a kihap can provide as much as 56ms in distraction, or a 20% delay in total response time, assuming 300ms for a typical response (Sinnett). This can provide the crucial window for you to execute your technique or get away from the assailant.
Kihaps Show (And Lift) Your Spirit
This last point may not mean much for some, but for those of us who have practiced martial arts for many years, there’s nothing more heartening than being in a room-full of other martial artists and hearing the united concert of kihaps. Whether it’s through drills, forms, or sparring, kihaps can lift the energy of the room and can build to such a crescendo that it can be overwhelming sometimes. Kihaps reinforce and build upon one another, and a good kihap can even make a bad kihap sound better. Gichin Funakoshi, who many consider the founder of modern karate, had this to say about kihaps,
“Budo (martial arts) that is lacking in kiai (kihap) is like a human being lacking a soul”
The kihap, in many respects, is the ultimate form of self representation. How does your kihap represent you?
References
Callison, Emily R. et al. Grunting in Tennis Increases Ball Velocity but Not Oxygen Cost. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2014
Funakoshi, Gichin. Karate Nyumon (Introduction to Karate). Hatsuo Suzuki, 1943
Sinnett, Scott et al. Grunting’s competitive advantage: Considerations of force and distraction. Open Science Framework, 2018
