The shoulder-hit start
Sabaki is the art of settling a group lightly inside enemy influence — not by living big, but by trading. It starts from contact: the shoulder-hit against a framework stone. Touch diagonally, never head-on, and never connect your stones to each other — heavy groups die, light groups survive. The dance that follows is famous: shoulder-hit, push, cross-cut, sacrifice one arm of the cut, and take shape with the other.