"Oss", The Karate Greeting

[isshinryu5toforever]

To those that think it's silly to use Japanese terminology I think you're silly because westernized boxing terms in Japan use the English pronunciation because boxing was hugely practiced by us English speaking countries before it was in Japan..you'll regularly hear boxing gyms in Japan say "one, two", "uppercut", "jab", etc. I've also heard the same used in Thailand.

If you ever travel to other countries that don't speak English it's kind of nice to go to other dojo that use the same Japanese terminology as a common ground so you can follow around even if it's not the same style of karate. With that being said I don't speak Japanese fluently by any means but all of the karate I have studied is typically done primarily in Japanese with little English.

This may be true in the western world, mainly Europe and North America (not sure about South America), but it isn't necessarily true over here. In Korea, and from what I've heard China, because they have their own very old martial arts, they don't adopt the Japanese names for things when they make the trip across a very small sea. In Korean Kyokushin dojo, they use Korean exclusively. Even for all technique names. The head instructor knows the Japanese terminology, but still chooses to use Korean. The same is true of Judo. When I was taking Judo I had to learn all the throws in Korean, and then cross reference them in Japanese to make sure I could remember them if I wanted to continue studying in the US.

Also, just because you learn the techniques in Japanese doesn't mean you're learning the correct pronunciation. For example, I have heard some atrocious Korean pronunciation at different dojangs in the past. It's so bad that a Korean person would never recognize the word, because it's a very precise language. A lot of these people might not be able to recognize the correct pronunciation either.

[shotokan-ste]

We use oss in our shotokan dojo but only when recieving instruction from our Sensei or higher ranking student,I've always been under the impression it is to acknowledge that you have understood the request

[Kuma]

Not all karate dojos use that. I've never heard it at mine. In fact, we don't use much Japanese at all. The whole concept seems a little awkward and a bit silly to me. You don't walk around greeting each other in ancient Greek during track and field practice, why do people greet each other in Japanese for martial arts training? To each his own, I guess...

OSU is such a great word that there really is no English equivalent I think.

Many military organizations have words like this. Being a Marine, I've probably said "Ooh-rah" thousands of times. The actual origins of it are shaky (some theories are it's like the noise of a submarine diving, others say it's based off of a Turkish phrase that means "kill them all"), but it's one of those words that can't be defined in normal terms.

[evergrey]

At this point, OSU has become so natural-feeling for me that I have a hard time remembering to not use it when interacting with non-Kyokushin types. It really kind of flows out of the gut and off the tongue. It's so much simpler than "yes sir" or "okay I understand" or "hi, it's good to see you!"

[PoppaDLo]

And we only use Osu to say yes or I understand, but not for greeting and anything else

Same at my Dojo where we study Kosho Shorei Ryu as one of the main disciplines. I have heard it used as a greeting, but not locally.

[sensei8]

The vernacular of the Japanese/Okinawan martial arts seems to be only understood my the practitioners of those same said styles, albeit, not understood by the general Japanese/Okinawan public, and in that, it certainly appears that "Karate" has a language to its own.

[Dobbersky]

I checked on a similar thread on Kyokushin for life and one of the posters advised that OSU, via the Kanji used is:

Osu is a combination of the words: Oshi which means "Push", and Shinobu which means "to Endure". It means patience, determination, appreciation, respect and perseverance.

So I'm happy with that explanation.

I use OSU in my Dojo and as I am Yudansha when visiting other Dojos

[still kicking]

We say "hai" instead of "oss", but I agree, it does become automatic when being given instruction. I have to stop myself from saying "hai" when my supervisor at work tells me to do something.

[boywonder]

mybe this will help the 10th dan Hirokazu Kanazawa tells what belive it mean

[ChristianeHigashi]

We use oss in my dojo.

mainly for when our sensei/instructor calls us out so he can show us how a moves works and what it's for.. after we complete it we bow and say "oss" then go back to lines.

we don;t have to but some of us do.

I do wado/ higashi karate