What is Ti?
Talking or writing about
Ti is difficult. Answering the question, “What is Ti?” is even more
difficult. Any answer will, by necessity, be full of qualifications
and almost all who read it will find some similarity to what they
“do” in their training, leaving the reader wondering what is so
special about Ti.
First and foremost, Ti
is intensely and specifically personal. In the Shinjinbukan we refer
to Onaga sensei’s Ti. Ti does not stand alone by itself as a system
or curriculum to be read and manualized; Ti belongs to a person and
is passed from individual to individual in the oral tradition of
old-school Okinawan dojo. Once a person begins to learn Ti, it
becomes easier to recognize those who “have no Ti” in their karate.
Those who have trained and learned Ti for many years can look at
individuals doing karate and point out those who do not appear to
understand what they are doing.
Ti is, above all, about
learning how to never lose. This is very different from sport-karate
schools that teach their students how to win. Learning how to never
lose is to train one’s body in the proper form (kata or mold); to
train one’s feet, legs and hips how to move the body; to train one’s
arms and hands to touch an opponent and to change (Findi) when
needed; to train one’s thumbs and wrists to allow your fists to
penetrate the target. These things, in part, are Ti. Learning how to
never lose is learning how to think about your karate using the
principles of Ti.
Ti is not a circle but a
sphere. It is moving oneself around and within that sphere. It is
the sound of machiwara struck properly, emanating the high pitched
“ping” characteristic of effective tsuki. Ti is movement and
constant change. Ti is knowing how to make the initial touch with
the opponent and knowing what to do before, during and after the
initial touch that will allow one to never lose. Karate without Ti,
is just punching and kicking. The Ti that we train at the
Shinjinbukan has been passed down from Onaga sensei to his deshi and
their students and cannot be defined in any succinct way any more
than the traditions of an entire culture can be contained in a
school text book. Onaga sensei would say that “Ti wa chiie” -Ti is
wisdom, meaning it is a way to understand or think about technique
and fighting theory. An analogous term would be Miyamoto Musashi’s
use of the term “Heiho” –strategy. This is the way we use the term
Ti.
Once learned, Ti
irrevocably changes the way that an individual views their karate.