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is a Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 term used in karate

Karate

is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...

 to refer to the spot where a kata

Kata

is a Japanese word describing detailed choreographed patterns of movements practised either solo or in pairs. The term form is used for the corresponding concept in non-Japanese martial arts in general....

begins, as well as its line of movement. Nearly all kata start and end on exactly the same embusen point. This word is also commonly romanized

Romanization of Japanese

The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems...

 as enbusen.

The embusen line varies for each series of kata. It is, for example, a straight line for the Shōtōkan

Shotokan

is a style of karate, developed from various martial arts by Gichin Funakoshi and his son Gigo Funakoshi . Gichin was born in Okinawa and is widely credited with popularizing karate through a series of public demonstrations, and by promoting the development of university karate clubs, including...

 Tekki series of kata. It follows the form of a capital letter I for the Heian series of kata, as well as for the Taikyoku series. More advanced kata, such as Shotokan's Kankū-dai

Kusanku

Kūsankū also called Kankū-dai , is an open hand karate kata that is studied by many practitioners of Okinawan, Japanese and Korean karate. In many karate styles, there are two versions of the kata: Kūsankū-shō and Kūsankū-dai...

and Gojūshiho dai

Gojushiho dai

' is a kata practiced in karate. In some styles of karate, there are two versions of this kata - Gojūshiho Shō and Gojūshiho Dai. An advantage of the two versions of the kata is to better master the difficult techniques presented therein, but not without facing some confusion, for many sequences...

 kata, as well as the Gōjū-ryū Seipai and Kararumfa kata, for example, have increasingly more complex embusen to train the practitioner in more advanced defensive angles and footwork. For any kata, the embusen is fixed and must be followed exactly for proper mastery of the style.