Kiai

Kiai

Kiai (Japanese: 気合, ) is a Japanese term used in martial arts for the short shout uttered when performing an attacking move. Traditional Japanese dojo generally uses single syllables beginning with a vowel. The concept has become a notable part of Asian martial arts in popular culture, especially in martial arts films, in writing often rendered in variants such as Hi-yah!, Aiyah!, Eeee-yah! or Hyah!. A kiai is usually not the word kiai itself. The term is a compound of ki (Japanese: 気), meaning "energy" or "mood" and a(u) (Japanese: 合, infinitive ai), an emphatic marker. The same concept is known as K'ihap in many Korean martial arts, such as taekwondo and Tang Soo Do, ki being the energy and hap meaning to join, to harmonize or to amplify, based on the Korean reading of the same characters; its Hangul spelling is 기합. In the board game Go, the term describes fighting spirit.

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