What Is Taido?

Seiken Shukumine is the founder of Taido. Taido is a form of karate but Shukumine did not feel that karate was adpating as fast as the world was changing so he decided to create a new form of karate around 1950. The reason is is called Taido is because it literally translates to "way of the body". As taido progressed it started to involve more spinning and quick movements which meant that footwork was essential to the mastering of Taido. Another thing taido involves is the changing of the body angles the reason for this is to confuse your opponent, generate more power for strikes, and be able to avoid strikes from your opponent.

Body Movement

As shown in the video there are many types of body movements, each one has a specific name:

Sen: This is the vertical spinning movement

Un: This is the wave like movements

Hen: This the falling movement which changes the body axis of the fighter

Nen: This is the horizontal spinning movement

Ten: This is the rolling and tumbling movement

Of course doing all of the above is not effective unless punches and kicks are added. The punches and kicking cannot be added however unless the footwork is mastered, the footwork is called unsoku. There is a part of Taido which does not involve footwork called unshin. But this style of taido is not nearly as effective or as amazing and entertaing to watch.

Five Principles

There are five main principles to the martial art of taido if followed they will help you become a better fighter and martial artist they are as follows:

Keep the mind clear and calm to avoid confusion
Keep composed make sure the body and mind are in harmony
Keep your spirit invigorated this keeps you from fearing anything
Do everything that you have been taught, this way you can never go wrong
Keep adaptable this will allow you to win the fight and keep from being dominated

Competition

There are three different main types of competition within taido. One is jissen this is a regular fight which just involves sparring. Two is hokei this is just a series of movements that are hard to preform which are preformed one after another like a routine, it is similar to the kata. Three is tenkai, tenkai is a 30 second fight which is previously determined who the winner is going to be, it is one hero who beats the rest of his opponents, the judges grade this competition on a scale of 1-10 on the difficulty of the moves, originality, and how well the moves are executed.

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Taido

What Is Taido?

Body Movement

Five Principles

Competition