I tell my students everyday that if karate was easy, anybody would be able to do it. And it's true, I standby that statement. If it was easy, anybody could do it, but that doesn't mean that karate isn't simple.
The concepts surrounding karate training are very simple. We utilize the most basic of geometric designs as a blueprint of how karate techniques should be executed: a straight line. Certainly there are other paths and courses that can be used for a variety of techniques, but the first lesson that all new white belts are taught involve straight lines. This is for a very basic reason, straight lines are simple. The beauty of karate is its simplicity. There are very few gimmicks that one needs to make their karate effective. One might argue that kicks like mawashi geri, and strikes like haito-uchi and uraken-uchi might not travel in straight lines, but the point isn't the trajectory of the technique. The point is the idea that the body travels in a straight line, straight toward the target.
Even if one's technique arcs around toward impact, one's body moves straight forward. It's in this simplicity that one can develop their greatest level of impact and power.
As Sensei Otis says, "Karate is very simple."
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