一拳必殺 ikken hissatsu Kill with One Blow
一拳必殺 (ikken hissatsu), one fist, certain kill, is a karate phrase for the goal a fist is trained for. It is in print by 1934, and by 1936 it is a saying of karate beside its twin 一撃必殺. This study follows it into the English of Nakayama's Best Karate of 1977, which warns against taking it literally.
Abstract
一拳必殺, ikken hissatsu, one fist, certain kill, is a karate phrase. It is in print from 1934, when a karate journal names it the goal a fist is trained for, and by 1936 it is what people say of karate, in a university club's manual that also carries its twin 一撃必殺, one strike, certain kill. After the war it stays karate's own, in manuals, novels, Ōyama's and Nakayama's Japanese books and the history of Okinawa, while 一撃必殺 became the wartime word and the later title. English has carried it as ikken hissatsu since Nakayama's Best Karate of 1977, which, like its Japanese, calls it a word of the old days and warns against taking it literally.
Overview
The sense. That one blow of the fist should decide the fight; in karate, the ideal of the single finishing technique. The first books state it together with its limit: karate is a defensive art with the power of 一拳必殺 hidden in it, and there is no first attack in karate.
The words. Ikken hissatsu; ichigeki hissatsu. 一撃 is one strike: one blow, one attack, the word the dictionaries illustrate with to fell with a single blow. Its oldest Japanese sense is a hawk's stoop, in a twelfth-century poem, and the oldest thing like our phrase in Chinese is about the same bird: a commentator on the Book of Changes explains the character for falcon by saying the bird does not perch in pairs and its one strike surely hits [1]. 必殺 is certain kill: 必, surely, and 殺, kill; the big dictionary defines it as killing the opponent without fail, or the resolve to, and its own example is our phrase turned round, 必殺の一撃, the killing blow [1]. In old Chinese the two characters are a verb, will surely kill him; the noun is Japanese and modern. 拳 is fist, and 一拳 is a real word, one fist in a poem of about 900 and a blow of the fist in a novel of 1904 [1]. So the two forms say one fist, certain kill and one strike, certain kill, and the first names the weapon karate trains. Neither is a headword in the general dictionaries [1].
The text in English. No English book known carries the romaji before Nakayama's Best Karate of 1977; Ōyama's own English of 1959 to 1980 carries the idea and never the romaji.
The historical record
1934. A karate journal. The earliest known use is in 『空手研究』, from the 空手研究社, which asks what a fighter who backs away has made of 一拳必殺を目標として鍛へた拳, a fist trained with one fist, certain kill as its goal [2].
1936. A byword, with its limit and its twin. Keiō's karate club, in its 『空手道集成』, writes it as a saying: 空手は一拳必殺とよく云ふが, people often say karate is one fist, certain kill, and sets it inside the art's restraint: 空手は護身的防禦術であり、一面消極的武術である。併し空手には一拳必殺の偉力が藏されて居る。「空手に先手なし」, karate is a defensive art of self-protection, in one aspect a passive art; but in karate the power of one fist, certain kill lies hidden. "There is no first attack in karate". The same book speaks of 所謂一撃必殺說, the so-called doctrine of one strike, certain kill: the two forms stand side by side in the first book that has both [3].
1938 and 1940. Beyond the dōjō. By 1938 the phrase describes a fighter's rampage in a book of Ryūkyū tales [4] and an uppercut in a children's magazine story, 一拳必殺と自稱して, called by its owner one fist, certain kill [5]; in 1940 a baseball magazine explains there is no first attack in karate by it: 空手に先手なしといふのは、一拳必殺であるから, there is no first attack in karate because it is one fist, certain kill [6].
1940 to 1945. The strike, not the fist. In the war years the phrase in print is 一撃必殺, one strike: in swordsmanship and jūdō from 1940, in the new wartime elementary schools and in strategy from 1941, in the army's sword course from 1942 [7]. A collection of 1942 for civil-service candidates in Manchukuo reprints the training essentials of the Manchuria Pioneer Youth Volunteer Corps, and they keep the fist, listing among the aims of training one sword, certain kill; one fist, certain kill; and beyond them the spirit of the divine warrior who does not kill [8].
1955 to 1968. The karate books. After the war 一拳必殺 is karate's again: a kind of martial art that came from Okinawa, what they call one fist, certain kill, a novel explains in 1955 [9]; a karate manual of 1956 repeats the 1936 sentence, by knowing the opponent's vital points one fist, certain kill becomes easy [10]; a teacher in 1968 describes the karate before his own as developed, as they say, "one fist, certain kill", purely as a technique of killing and wounding in real combat [11].
1969 to 1975. Ōyama and Okinawa. Ōyama's 『100万人の空手』 says 一拳必殺という言葉は嘘ではない, the words one fist, certain kill are no lie; a fist trained right is stronger than a hammer [12]. The prefecture's own history of Okinawa, in 1975, says of one fighter's fist: その握り拳から発する豪拳は「一拳必殺」とうたわれていた, the mighty blow from that fist was sung of as "one fist, certain kill" [13].
Nakayama's Japanese. Nakayama's 『ベスト空手』, in the printings the Diet Library holds (1989–1990), uses it twice: recalling, in the honorific, the warning against bouts won by piling up points and the insistence that 一拳必殺こそ空手の真髄, one fist, certain kill is the heart of karate; and 昔は、物騒な表現だが、一拳必殺という言葉が使われた, in the old days, a dangerous expression though it is, the words one fist, certain kill were used [14]. That is the Japanese under the English romaji.
Today. In the Diet Library's full text the phrase stands in more than a hundred items from 1934 into the 2000s, most of them karate books; in those printed after 1946 it is karate's word, not the army's [15].
The word in English
1959 to 1978. Ōyama's English, then Nakayama's. Ōyama's English books from 1959 carry the idea in every one, knock down any man with one blow, and the romaji in none [16]. The phrase itself arrives with Nakayama's Best Karate (1977), the earliest known romaji, and it arrives with the warning his Japanese also gives, in the series introduction: Long ago, there was the expression ikken hissatsu, meaning "to kill with one blow," but to assume from this that killing is the objective is dangerous and incorrect [17]; the 1978 volume repeats it [18].
1981 to 2002. The Shōtōkan books. The Shōtōkan books keep the romaji: Oui magazine in 1981 (Victory with one punch) [19], Black Belt in 1985 [20], Rielly's histories from 1985 (One-punch death-blow) [21], Kanazawa's Kumite Kyōhan in 1987 ("To kill with one blow") [22], Morris 1994 (one deadly blow) [23], Stevens 1995 (a single blow must decide all) [24], Umezawa's wordbook 1998 (One strike, certain kill) [25], Durbin 2001 (one strike, certain death) [26], Lowry 2002 (one strike decides all) [27].
Today. Ikken hissatsu is the romaji of the English-language Shōtōkan books since 1977, and it renders a Japanese karate phrase of the 1930s. Nakayama's warning against taking the words literally is the phrase's best commentary, and the first books to print it already set the same limit beside it.
A reading
一拳必殺 is karate's phrase, older in print than the war and outliving it. The first book to call it a saying hedges it in the same breath, a defensive art with a hidden power and no first attack, and the last Japanese witness here, Nakayama's, calls it a dangerous expression from the old days. Between them the war made the strike, 一撃必殺, the public word, and karate kept the fist. The 1942 training essentials reach past both to the divine warrior who does not kill, which is where Nakayama's warning also points.
References
- 「一撃」・「必殺」・「一拳」・「必殺技」, 大辞泉・日本国語大辞典, at kotobank; 黃宗炎, 周易象辭, 卷12 (the falcon), at zh.wikisource. https://kotobank.jp/word/一撃 · https://kotobank.jp/word/必殺
- 空手研究社 (ed.), 空手研究, 1934 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1027727
- 慶応義塾体育会空手部 (ed.), 空手道集成, 1936 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1144879
- 石川文一, 琉球の伝奇小説集, 1938 (the index's text). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1457108
- 小学六年生, November 1938 (the index's text; open at the Diet Library only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1788260
- 野球界, November 1940 (the index's text; open at the Diet Library only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1584641
- NDL Digital Collections, full text, 一撃必殺, oldest first. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=一撃必殺&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
- 満洲司法協会, 満洲帝国常識模範論説全集, 1942, 満洲開拓青年義勇隊訓練要項, p. 177, scan 92. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1266899/1/92
- 牧野吉晴, 空手, 1955 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1644312
- 空手道普及の会 (ed.), 図解空手道教本, 1956 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2478640
- 宮城敬, 正統空手道, 1968 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2517128
- 大山倍達, 100万人の空手, 1969 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12142149
- 沖縄県教育委員会 (ed.), 沖縄県史, 1975 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3026361
- 中山正敏, ベスト空手, the printings of 1989–1990 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13217083
- NDL Digital Collections, full text, 一拳必殺, oldest first. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=一拳必殺&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
- Mas Oyama, What Is Karate?; Vital Karate; This Is Karate, 1959–1980, at Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/what-is-karate
- M. Nakayama, Best Karate, vol. 1, Comprehensive, Kodansha International, 1977, Introduction, at Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bestkarate00naka
- Nakayama Masatoshi, Best Karate, vol. 3, Kodansha International, 1978, at Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/karatebestkarate03kumite011978
- Oui, November 1981.
- Black Belt, May 1985.
- Robin L. Rielly, Karate Training and other titles, 1985–2003.
- Kanazawa Hirokazu, Shotokan Karate International Kumite Kyōhan, 1987, at Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/shotokan-shotokan-karate-international-kumite-kyohan
- Vince Morris, The Advanced Karate Manual, 1994.
- John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, 1995.
- Umezawa Rui, The Empty Hand: A Karate Wordbook, Weatherhill, 1998.
- William Durbin, Mastering Kempo, 2001.
- Dave Lowry, Traditions, 2002.