There are a variety of martial arts and other fighting sports where it is important to keep your distance and strike at the right time. Examples are karate, kendo, taekwondo, and boxing. In judo it is less obvious because it has two stages. In the first stage, both judoka are standing up and trying to maneuver themselves into a favorable position to make a decisive throw or at least get the opponent off balance. When you get too close before the throw you are likely to lose balance yourself, so for an attack to be effective you have to keep a solid stance. This is a moot point because when you move in the direction of your opponent, he can use your inertia to make a throw or sacrifice. On the other hand, once the adversaries are on the ground, it is important to use your weight and strength to keep the other person down by keeping direct physical contact.

In go we also have these same elements. You try to keep a distance and wait for the right timing to attack. Sometimes you make sacrifices when your opponent attacks, and sometimes you try to put your opponent on the wrong foot to obscure your real motives. However, when you get down to direct fights where the stones touch each other, it becomes a different thing. There are many situations where the brute force of taking away liberties is important. These situations are referred to as semeai or capturing races. Let’s now get our hands dirty and find out the basics of capturing races.