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How do you move in karate?

The arms? The legs? Isn't how we move the crux of applying technique with power? Isn't economic motion, conserving energy, dependent on how we move? Is movement simply where we put our feet and set our stance? Is movement simply that movement that comes from the mid-section? What is movement in karate and how and why do we move in any particular way?

This is a complex question or questions with both a simple and complex set of answers. Movement, sometimes called "tenshin, taihai, taisabaki, tensho, yukkuri, hyomengi, [lets assume those terms in Japanese are actually accurate/correct for this post/discussion :-)] etc." Notice it is not just one term to explain the simplicity and complexity of moving in karate or martial system.

In an atomistic viewing of movement to learn, teach and practice one must look at all the individual parts then as time passes and proficiency increases blend them back into the "one holistic whole" of karate movement to truly encode it to the brain, i.e. muscle memory if that helps.

In reality the movement in karate is the symbiotic relations of the hara, the feet, the body alignment and structure, the torso, the shoulders, the arms and legs as well as the various implements; fists, elbows, hands, fingers, forearms, knees, shins, ball of foot, ridge of foot, instep of foot, etc. when it contacts and transfers body power to the target. And, I haven't actually gotten all of it down in this short and incomplete posting.

When a new person says they want to fight they sometimes get discouraged, most times quit, when they are told to continue to practice the fundamentals over and over and over and over and over ..... the foundation is crucial and those things that we learn to build the foundation of karate contain all of this stuff.

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