What is Gamaku in Karate?

What is Gamaku in Karate?

Roughly speaking, Gamaku is inside of a body around your waist above your hip, and below your rib bones or lungs.

This Gamaku is a terminology of Okinawan Karate and Okinawan dialect.

They said that “Gamaku wo Ireru(bridge)” which means “Connect bones and muscles, especially around the area of Gamaku.

In the center of Gamaku, we have an imaginary center of energy generator called Tanden which we feel the size of an egg in the small bowel. The position of Tanden is 3 fingers width down from the belly button and 3 fingers-width inside of your body towards the center of your body.

Using Gamaku actually means how to use mainly Quadratus Lumborum muscles (QL muscles). We have 2 QL muscles on the right and left in our body.

To move, we need to move other muscles around QL muscles too, but the main muscles are QL muscles.

For example, to maximize the power of the right arm punch, we used the right-hand side of the QL muscles. The movement around the QL muscle is moving from the right back hip up to the lower back, to the front, and downward towards the front surface of the right leg. It is a circular movement around the QL muscle if you look at it from the right side.

This hip rotation makes the right arm move forward to push out the punch. Hip rotation is like the trigger of a pistol and connected internal parts to push out a bullet. The hand is like a bullet. The hip rotation moves the elbow forward and pushes the arm forward, which makes a punch.

I hope this article helps you.

Aki