While technical prowess and physical power are essential characteristics of a martial artist, true mastery of the art comes by cultivationg one's inner strength. Here, Kenji Tokitsu-an authority on Japanese and Chinese combat arts and a respected karate teraacher-shows how cultivating ki (life force) and understanding the principles of budo (the martial path of self-development) can make training in martial arts more meaningful, effective, and personall and spiritually rewarding.

Tokitsu emphasizes the mental aspects of martial arts practice including:

The importance of ki development
Seme, or captruing your opponent's mind
Understanding ma, the spatial relatinship in combat

Studying these concepts, he explains, gives martial artists the tools to train for a lifetime and at the very highest level. Tokitsu also gives a historical and cultural survey of budo, and explains how the Western view of budo trainng is different than the Japanese-a perspective rarely available to Western martial artists.

Kenji Tokitsu was born in Japan and began studying martial arts when he was a child. He has taught karate in Paris since 1971. In 1984, he founded the Shaolin-mn schol, where he teaches a syntensis of the original combat arts of Japan and China. Tokitsu also holds a doctorate in sociology.

Contents

Preface
1 What is Budo?
2 The transmission of budo by the japanese
3 The problem of budo for foreign practitioners
4 A key to budo
5 Ki in Japanese culture
6 The Japanese conception of ki
7 The content of combat in kendo
8 Space in te arts of combat
9 Ki, the guide to budo
10 Ma, the spatial concretization of ki
11 Detect and conceal
12 The combat of ki
13 The meaning and the value of combat
14 The classical methods of developing ki in combat
15 The convergence of two approaches
16 Kiko and combat