This article concerns kime, a somatic code used in the ‘empty
hand’ Japanese martial art of karate. Kime is a tactile-kinesthetic entity
born out of practice, coming into being in a social setting through the specific
organization of the body-self, fusing body and self into one stance and movement.
Kime is entirely embodied, yet can only be operated and recognized
inter-subjectively. It plays a crucial role in combat and at the same time also
indicates a spiritual possibility that depends on eradication of emotion and
volition. An analysis of kime shows how cultural understandings can emerge without
necessarily using symbolic representations or verbal discourse in their
construction. These somatic non-dual understandings can come to form an entire
world-of-meaning directly through the moving body. The moving body shapes itself
within itself even as it interacts with and contributes to shape its immediate
environment. This is a world-of-meaning that includes complex inter-subjectivity
founded on the speed and ambiguity of the interface between the innerness and the
outerness of the body.
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