Japanese in Karate 4 "Shinzen" & "Rei"

(4)ללמוד מילים ביפנית שמשתמשים באימון קראטה

神前 Shinzen

The first kanji  神 "shin" means 'God' and the second  前 "zen" means 'in front of'. "Shinzen" is the place where there is a spirit of god.

God for Japanese people is from Shinto religion. Most of Japanese people belong to Shinto (and also Buddhism) but they usually call themselves 'non-religious'.

Shinto is very different from other religions. The Shinto's belief is that (simply put) there are gods in everything in the nature(like in the sun, the woods, fire, etc..) and we cannot live without the blessings of those gods. So Japanese people pray to the gods when they appreciate the benefits in life or when they beg for better situations. But other than that, they are not obliged to do anything.  Samurai warriors used to pray to the gods for safety and triumph.

The gods represented by Shinzen in the dojo are 2 gods of martial arts.                                   
 鹿島大明神(Kashima daimyojin)　香取大明神(Katori daimyojin)

You might see these 2 names (written vertically) hanging on the wall in "Shinzen"
These gods/spirits will protect you from danger through the training and help you improve your skills.

This is called "Kamidana" (shelf of God) . This is smaller and the shelf is attached to the wall but this is also "Shinzen"

"Rei" is 'a bow'.  Japanese people bow when they appreciate and when they apologize and also when they ask someone a favour. Bowing is the courtesy in Japanese society. "Rei" is also for showing respect. You do "rei" before and after the fight to the opponent to show respect even if he is your enemy.

You do "Shinzen ni rei!"  at the beginning of the training.  "ni" in the middle means 'to' but the order of words is opposite from English. So here it means 'Bow to Shinzen'. It actually means that you bow to show your courtesy to the gods and pray for safety in the training and for improvement of your karate skills. Bowing to the gods also means the respect to parents and to ancestors.

<Japanese expressions>
Thank you                      = Arigato gozaimas/ Arigato gozaimashita(past tense)
I am sorry                       = Sumimasen
Please do me a favour = Onegaishimas


I will explain "shoumen" and "seiza" next time.

Osu