Grappling skills.

Tuite basically means grabbing/gripping hand. In karate, it is the art of joint manipulation and grappling. While karate does place a strong emphasis on striking, it is also understood that combative situations often involve ‘entanglements’ wherein it would be necessary to manipulate your opponent, causing them pain, dysfunction, and loss of balance.

To become proficient at tuite, students analyze how the joints work in the body.

The thing about joints is that they only like to work in certain ways and directions. The elbow can bend inward, but gets grumpy if you overextend it. The wrist can swing in a circular fashion, but reacts very painfully if you press it in a backward 45-degree angle (as seen in the picture above). Knowledge of these joint manipulations and off-balancing factors are very advantageous when a fight closes range.

Sometimes when people hear about tuite they wonder if it is its own art. After all, one could spend a good portion of their life improving their ability to manipulate joints. That being said, tuite is meant to be part of a continuum in the karate lexicon.

At its best, karate has aspects of combat for all ranges and situations. It has the omni-useful percussive strike. It has tuite that compliments striking by adding the ability to cause disabling pain and throws to an opponent. It also has a concept called tegumi which is a form of grappling. And finally there is kyusho, vital point striking. (I’ll talk more about these other concepts at a later time). When meshed together and practiced fluidly, practitioners are meant to be competent and natural in any situation.