this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
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me_irl
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I (and my fellows) were taught to start with just either 'osu' or literally verbalizing the kiai as 'ki-ai', but were also told that many different sounds can work, do what works for you after you get the basic concept down.
Some stuck with osu/ous or kiai, others ended up with something like hai or sai or ee-sah or 'tsah or 'tsuh or 'tsuu...
Many possible variants... i remeber hearing 'go with your gut', entirely unironically.
EDIT: Now that I think about it more, if you kept track of who was making what kind of kiai sound at a tournament, you could probably be reasonably confident as to which dojo they were from, at least at beginner to intermediate levels, hah!
Oh yeah, I’d guess the vocalization was very kwanjangnim dependent lol
... Kwan Jang Nim?
You learned... Soo Bahk Do? or Moo Duk Kwan?
I've never even heard of that.
... its... kind of sort of related to Tae Kwon Do, but also has influence from Shotokan Karate and... Taekkyeon?
Oh lordy, the 'family tree' of martial arts just never gets any simpler...
I learned Shito-Ryu... which as far as I can tell, has no Korean influence, but eventually everything goes back to Okinawan Te and Chinese Kung Fu, in some manner or another...
I wonder if we have in common any Katas.
Seienchin, perhaps?
To be honest, it was a local neighborhood place run by a white guy, ostensibly Tae Kwon Do, and we called the main teacher kwanjangnim Joe (though we pronounced it "kwah-ja-nim")