Kiai

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    Keywords: Go term

Chinese: 气合 (qi4 he2)
Japanese: 気合い (kiai)
Korean:

Kiai is a Japanese go term representing an attitude of aggressively parrying your opponent's plans and pushing ahead with your own. Often translated as "fighting spirit", it has a positive sense, and can also be applied to individual moves demonstrating the kiai attitude.

One prototypical kiai move would be to immediately follow up on a threat your opponent ignores. After all, if it was not worth following up on, why did you make it in the first place? You may lose the game, but will at least preserve your honor.

If a player demonstrates kiai superior to his opponent, he is kiai-gachi (winning at kiai); if inferior, kiai-make.

Holigor: Interesting that the higher the level of the book, the more often the term kiai is referred to. Go Seigen uses it often, for example. It seems that good players strive to avoid being "kikashi'ed" (kikasare), being forced to do something. They are looking for the opportunity to find a counter for each move of the opponent's.

Andre Engels: From the places where I have read discussion of kiai, it seems to be about 'not letting your opponent have their way'. This is especially important with kikashi as HolIgor mentions - very good kiai is to take the opponent's kikashi, answer in an unexpected way, and either get sente or turn it into a thank you move. It applies to other situations also, however, for example if the opponent tries to make an exchange that secures territory on both sides, it is kiai to break through and counterattack. Maybe kiai is best understood as the opposite of submissive play? Just a guess.

Example 1

[Diagram]

White 1 is Kiai

The example to the left is from Cho vs. Kato 1/17/2002. Responding to the peep with W1, instead of connecting at a, is kiai.


Example 2

[Diagram]

kokiri: I thought it would be worth having an example with a more whole-board perspective.

This is from the recent Honinbo match. Yoda Norimoto is White. Takemiya said that with move B6, Black would like to either strengthen the bottom right (as played) or approach across the top to bring to life black+circle.

Yoda does not want to allow Black to get to play both spots. Hence, although locally B6 clearly needs a reply, he wants to play with Kiai and so takes W7. Black follows up the attack with B8 and White attaches at a to secure the group.


Japanese lexicographical notes

One Japanese dictionary gives the following meanings for kiai:

  1. Emotional momentum when involving yourself in something in a concentrated mental way. Or, a shout showing such feeling.
  2. Technique for dealing with things. Or, mutual feeling. Breath.
  3. Feeling.

Engaging in compositional semantics (breaking down a word and trying to understand it as the combination of the "meaning" of its parts) is not usually very productive for Japanese or other languages, but for those who insist:

ki 気 means "spirit", "mood". ai 合い means "joint", "together", "gathering". (It appears in miai 見合い "looking together" or "looking at each other" and in semeai 攻め合い "attack together" or "attack each other".) Thus one could make a literal translation of kiai as "Charging/Gathering your Spirit", or just "Pumping yourself up" in laymen's terms. Fighting Spirit would normally be "Toushi (闘志)"


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This is a copy of the living page "Kiai" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2009 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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