Atemi

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[Chris Birke]

What is the etymology of the word Atemi? The German verb for breathe is atmen. In some religions Atma means soul. It must be a very ancient word if all of these share a common root. Does anyone have more insight?

[PaulieWalnuts]

ATEMI= To strike a vital point instead of punching and pounding.

To distract uke from using other hand so you can apply somthing.

To finish the situation wether you use a technique or not

[Greg Jennings]

Chris,

With respect, I think you're reaching.

Regards,

[Peter Goldsbury]

What is the etymology of the word Atemi? The German verb for breathe is atmen. In some religions Atma means soul. It must be a very ancient word if all of these share a common root. Does anyone have more insight?

Hello Chris. I agree that the words sound the same, but the meanings are quite different. None of these words share a common root and 'atemi' has nothing to do with words in other languages for breathing or souls.

The basic meaning of 'atemi' is 'strike the body' and the etymology is obviously related to Chinese. The Chinese reading of 'ateru' is TOU and of 'mi' is SHIN. The kanji are: ??? and became part of the language when Chinese characters were introduced to Japan.

The first character means 'strike', the second means 'body' (the middle character simply marks a verb ending). So it is very simple. It means hitting the guy/lass, hopefully before he/she hits you. So it is what you do in a bar, if you are a bouncer, if you think that a customer is about to attack you. It has nothing whatever to do with breathing or religion, except that knowing how to breathe, and being religious, might help you to do it better.

Best regards,

[Chris Birke]

I'm glad it turned out to be such a useful thread. Its obivious then that there is no relation between atemi and the other words, but it was close enough to make me curious.

I was googling it myself, and came across this:

"Etymology: Today's word is the Latin word animus "soul, spirit, intellect" lifted whole from the language. "Animal" originally referred to all beings considered to have a soul, thus living beings. The root comes, interestingly enough, from a Proto-Indo-European root (*anê-) meaning "to breathe." Our ancestors thought that our breath was our soul, the spirit of life itself. In ancient Avestan, a Western Indic language, antya meant "breath in." Sanskrit atman "soul" and German atmen "breath" are also probably related, though the loss of nasalization that converted the [n] to [t] is not a common change. Two other cousins are Greek anemos "wind" and Russian von' "stink," which goes back to Old Slavic "vonya" from earlier *anya." "
http://conferences.sad6.k12.me.us/wordoftheday/953F6A89-3B9ACA00-00AD8D8A

[Peter Goldsbury]

Yes, agreed, but the Greek/Sanskrit anemos concept is quite different from atemi in Japanese. It is interesting that pneuma/animos has its own counteparts in Japanese with shin and kokyu. But ateru/atemi is quite different.

Best regards,

[batemanb]

I put two posts in here yesterday in answer to Peter`s comments on displaying Kanji on Aikiweb

Both Peter`s comments and my posts have disappeared from the thread????

[Bronson]

I believe they have been moved to the feedback forum.

Bronson

[batemanb]

I believe they have been moved to the feedback forum.

Bronson

Thanks Bronson, I am only recently venturing outside of the General section, guess I ought to look around a bit more