

If the karateka has sente, then they should try to retain it for as long as possible. These are really two sides of the same coin – knowing how sente is kept implies knowledge of how it might be seized, and knowing how it might be lost entails knowing how it might be kept. The next two sections deal with keeping sente when you have it, and taking it when you do not. The karateka who has sente the most during a fight has the best chance of winning as they’re in a position to control the fight. The fight will switch between these three stages quite fluidly stage 3 is the least balanced where one karateka has the upper hand ( sente). One of the karateka is consistently attacking and the other is defending.Both karateka are exchanging blows more or less turn for turn.The karateka are not directly engaged in combat, but are measuring each other up, assessing how and when to attack.Typically in jyu kumite we see 3 stages:. Being aware of your situation is the first step to improving that situation. Giving these situations names helps us recognise and analyse them. If you’re the one that is defending, then you have gote. If you’re in a position where your opponent is spending their time defending, then you have sente. Sente and Gote in Karate Recognising Sente and Goteĭuring kumite it is important to look out for and recognise whether you have sente or gote. Conversely if you have gote then your aim should be to take sente, by either playing in a different area - tenuki or by answering the move in a clever way tesuji (the te part relates to “hand” or “move” in the context of Go). If you have sente then you aim to keep it for as long as possible, by making moves that your opponent cannot afford to ignore. In other words you can pretty much dictate your opponent’s response (this can extend over very long sequences in Go). Having sente is highly desirable, because you are in a position where you can control the game, you can continue to improve your position by making moves that demand an answer from your opponent. So sente literally translatesĪs “ahead hand” and gote as “behind hand”. 先 (sen) means “ahead”, 手 (te) means “hand” and 後 (go) means “behind”. Written using kanji they are as follows:. The player with the initiative is said to have sente, and the other player is said to have gote. The terms sente and gote are important terms in Go, they relate to who has the initiative. This article introduces the terms from Go and analyses how they can be applied to Karate. This article doesn’t explain the rules, but interested readers can find an excellent introduction at. In Go, players take turns to place stones on the board, each with the object of surrounding the most territory.

Go is about 4,000 years old and has been studied in depth for a very long time. Sente and Gote are terms typically used in relation to the ancient eastern board game known as “Go”, also known as Igo (in Japan), Weiqi (in China) and Baduk (in Korea).
