Hō (法) and Hō (方)

The phoneme 'hō' in such Aikido terms as kokyū-hō, tenkan-hō is written with the kanji character 法, which has a variety of meanings: 'law', 'doctrine', 'principle', 'technique', 'method'. For example, the faculty of law in a university in Japanese is hō-gakubu (法学部). In the term kokyū-hō (呼吸法) the first two characters stand for 'breath' or 'respiration'. Thus the general meaning of kokyū-hō is 'method for using breath'. It is also known as kokyū-ryoku-yosei-hō (呼吸力養成法): 'method for training breath power'.

There is, of course, another term kokyū-nage (呼吸投げ). Here nage derived from the verb nageru meaning 'to throw', 'to hurl', 'to fall'. Whereas in some Aikido books the terms kokyū-hō and kokyū-nage are used interchangeably, there is in fact a difference in nuance. In kokyū-hō it does not really matter whether uke is thrown or not: the emphasis in on breathing. In kokyū-nage it is important that uke is thrown, but by means of the breath.

Another rendering of hō (方) means 'direction', 'side', 'way'. As a suffix, it means 'manner'. Thus, if we put the two characters for hō into one compound, we get 方法 hō-hō, which means 'method'. In the aikido term shihō-giri (四方斬り) shi means 'four' and giri is derived from the verb kaeru meaning 'to cut' (as with a sword). Thus the term means 'cutting in four directions'. In the technique shiho-giri tenkan hō, as explained in the text article in this Newsletter, the meaning is 'method of turning while cutting in four directions'. The kanji for tenkan is made up of two characters: 転換. The first element, ten, basically means 'to turn' or 'to change'; and the second element, kan, is also read as 換える: kaeru, and this has the precise meaning of 'changing', 'replacing', 'converting' (e.g. 換 meaning 'conversion' or 'exchange rate'). Thus, although the term tenkan is commonly translated 'turning' or 'changing direction', we might understand the technique as 'method for diverting (uke's force) by/when cutting in four directions'.