The three main aims of Shorinji Kempo are:
- Healthy Body - Improved physical fitness and health
- Healthy Mind - Spiritual development
- Self-Defense
Shorinji Kempo teaches a wide variety of techniques, ranging from goho (hard techniques) such as kicks and punches, juho (soft techniques) such as grappling and throwing, to seiho (correcting methods) acupressure techniques for revival of unconscious persons. These three types of techniques are further divided into kogi (offensive techniques), bogi (defensive techniques), shuho (defence methods, mainly against soft techniques), tai gamae (body position), sokui ho (foot position), umpo ho (footwork), and tai sabaki (body movement).
Techniques are seldom practiced in isolated form. Often a technique is put into a context, or pattern, also known as hokei. The hokei is typically an attack paired with a defence.
Hokei is practiced either in isolated form, or during randori (free fighting, a more literal translation being "to bring Chaos under order", which is philosophically rather different to simply fighting for its own sake).
The relationship between technique, hokei and randori is similar to that of the relationship between words, sentences and essays. A word forms the basis of the sentence, just like the technique forms the basis of hokei. The sentence forms the basis of the essay, just like hokei forms the basis of randori. In order to master the art of writing good essays, one must first have a good vocabulary (words), and how you put them together to form sentences that conveys meaning. Similarly, in order to master the art of randori, one must know how to perform techniques, and how to put them together into hoke
