All right I won't tell you to believe about the so-called 'ki' power, but as a half Japanese (my mom's from Okinawa) and having born and grown up in the land of karate itself, I've been naturally exposed to everything about karate, including those 'mysitical' (I just call it that for the westerners' sake) parts, many I've heard about and some I've seen. When we visited the home dojo of the Uechi, we saw the founder's son himself who was already an old man. The older students of Uechi will swear that five strong students won't be able to push the elder Uechi even an inch when he perform the Sanchin. Even if they try to push him with a bamboo pole, they say they won't be able to make him budge even a little from his position. As for myself, once I was introduced to a man who they said was a son of one of old, famous karate clans. While we had a ramen at a noodle house, the man got one of those disposable chopsticks. He took the thin paper wrapper and folded it at few times at one end while leaving the other end about 6 inches in lenght as it is. Then he told one of us to hold the 1-piece chopstick not yet broken into the usual two and held the sharp end of the wrapper (just like a thin knife) pointed towards it and with a quick lightning stroke of the paper, he broke those chopsticks into two! I still couldn't believe how he broke those pretty tough chopsticks just with those very thin paper wrappers of those sticks themselves. At that time he said it needs years of practice to do that. Yea, you can say it's just a trick and he was just bluffing about the 'years of practice' line, and I won't argue with you cuz I really don't know. But as long as somebody can prove it so, I'll stick with what the young 'master' had said.

You're right about the kamikaze spirit. There's a famous cliff in Okinawa where, when the American troops pushed the Japanese soldiers and civilians there, rather than surrender they jumped to their death by the thousands during the WWII (Okinawa was the last battleground of WWII right after Iwo Jima but bloodier and my mom who was only a little girl was one of few survivors). The cliff is called the 'suicide cliff' and is now a war monument. I myself has an Japanese uncle who never came back from war... So we trained in the old tough ways back then. We were led to jump from a hill about 15 feet in height where I sprained my foot. We did a lots of makiwara striking to toughen our hands and until now have big knuckles because of them. And during those times, the Okinawans were demolishing their pre-war houses so we had a lot of old clay roof tiles at our disposal for the breaking. Barely a teen I was able to bread at least three of them stacked together and I assure you they were pretty tough. At the woodwork shop in our school, I'd sometimes break those pine boards in front of my classmates when I was in the middle school...

Yea I remember during those Wallace days, the karate in the States looked pretty bad. They were so clumsy compared to their Japanese counterparts and looked as if they were boxing with some bad kicks. But I'd say Chucky was passable, though. The karatekas now, including the movie stars, are much better now then before, though I'd still say the karate schools there a tailored for city kids and so far from the traditional way we practiced.

...I've been through enough of the old, traditional training and now, I'm on the 'softer' or the ki side of karate. I've master the hard part and have nothing to prove anymore, having graduated from tile or board breakings and body bangings, and all. I've been meditating a lot which has changed me a lot. When I was young, I was a hot-headed lad and have smacked lot of kids in the face. But now I've turned into a calmer, no-confrontational type of person. Once I spilled whole content of my coffee mug on my lap but surprisingly, I didn't feel a bit of annoyance and just calmly washed my self, cleaned the floor and the table, whereas before I'd be upset and swearing all kinds of four-lettered words. That's what the 'soft' side of karate can do to a person. Of course, you'll say those ki stuff as nonsense, but for me it gives me a lifetime goal in life, and it doesn't even matter to me anymore if it's fake or if I won't be able to achieve it. Living in rural Philippines now where there's nothing much, this goals is what keeps me going, something that I can look to for the rest of my life.